Our Teenagers bring home Laurels

In 2007, when the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup tournament was to be played, India had hardly any credentials worth the name in the shortest version of the game.

- GP CAPT ACHCHYUT KUMAR

So a team under Mahendra Singh Dhoni was dispatched in which many star names were conspicuous by their absence. So no one would have grumbled even if the Indian team had returned without winning any of its matches. However, what followed is now history.

Matters have changed since those yesteryears and now the Indian men’s team is ranked among the best T20 teams in the world. In contrast, the Indian women’s cricket team has yet to inscribe its name on any of the ICC World Cups. The closest that it came to doing so was when under Mithali Raj the Indian team entered the final of the WODI but lost rather badly to the same English team that it had beaten a few days earlier.

The Under-19 inaugural T20 World Cup for the girls was to be played in South Africa in January 2023 and the timing of the tournament could not have been any better for the Indian girls. Although Virat Kohli gave the Indian team a motivational talk before the team’s departure, there were two major factors that turned out to be favourable for the Indian contingent. First, being a prelude for selection in the women’s IPL teams, it would have been a big motivation to perform well at the international level. Secondly, the timing of the tournament ensured that two members of India’s senior cricket team and the ultimate highest run scorer in the tournament, Shweta Sehrawat (born 26 February 2004) remained eligible to play in the Under-19 team for India.