Sports
An all girls cricket team in India breaks with tradition
More than a dozen young girls from a small village cycle through farmland in the Indian state of Punjab.
Moving along a dirt pathway, dressed all in white, their excitement starts to build. Amid the miles of wheat fields, emerges the source of their joy: two cricket pitches, with plastic wickets and strip of concrete from where they can bat.
If it conjures images of the 1989 Hollywood film, Field of Dreams, it wouldn’t be too far from the truth. These 18 girls make up the Gulab Singh Cricket Team.
Cricket is the most popular sport in India, akin to a religion many would say. While it continues to remain a male-dominated game, things are changing.
Earlier this year, India started a women’s cricket premier league (WPL), a female version of the Indian Premier League (IPL). It has quickly become one of the world’s most lucrative women’s franchises, second only to the Women’s National Basketball Associate in the US.
Women in India have been active – and high performing – in cricket for many years. The WPL has catapulted them into mainstream popularity. Now they get the kind of media attention only reserved for men’s teams.
In October, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the governing body of Indian cricket. said all contracted female cricketers would be paid the the same match fee as men – a historic decision to promote “gender equality” in the country’s most-loved game.
Despite the changes on the national level, it can still be difficult for girls to be afforded the opportunity to play, especially in rural towns. “I created this cricket team to make their lives better,” says Gulab Singh Shergill, 35, who started this plucky little league four years ago.
Gulab Singh Shergill started the little league four years ago (pic BBC)
Partly to live out his failed dreams of playing cricket professionally and mostly because he really believes the girls in the village deserve a shot. “They don’t get permission to get a higher education, only getting to tenth class,” he says. After that, it’s a life of cooking and cleaning until they are married and sent to live with their in-laws.
His players are being exposed to something different. Every day, they come here, park their bikes under a tree behind the batting area and head to the grassy field where they start warming up.
Simranjit Kaur, 13, is learning to bowl. She runs down the pitch, rotates her arm and lets the leather ball out of her hand. Her height allows her to get speed and she says her accuracy is starting to improve. She is quiet and soft spoken, still very much the frame of a child but has had to grow up fast. After her mother died suddenly three years ago, her grandmother has become her primary caretaker, along with her two younger sisters, aged 10 and three. She joined the team a few years ago after seeing them play in a tournament in a neighbouring village with her father, a cricket enthusiast. “My father asked me if I would like to play,” she said in the courtyard of her house. “I said yes. So he asked the coach if I could join. And he said to come the next day.”
Simranjit Kaur (right) is learning to bowl (pic BBC)
In the morning before going to school, Simranjit crouches by a stove next to her grandmother, making rotis for the family. After school, instead of being stuck inside like many girls her age, with the support of her father and grandmother, she throws on her cricket whites and heads to practice, her sister in tow.
“There’s an ill thinking in villages,” says Baljeet Kaur, Simran’s grandmother. “They say that girls should be married and sent off to her in-laws, as if they have got no life. Sometimes people in village tell us why are you sending girls for playing. This is our wish and we want them to play.”
When asked how she feels when people discourage her, Simranjit says, “I don’t want to stop playing, this is my life. I feel really bad because I really like cricket, I really like playing.”
Cricket is not Shergill’s full-time job; he works as a constable in the local police force.
The players pay for nothing, he says. His entire salary goes to the girls’ team: paying for a part time coach, getting uniforms and equipment. He has donated a part of his land for the cricket pitch and hopes to build an office with a toilet one day.
It’s only been four years but in that time he’s been able to expose these girls to a life beyond the bounds of their village.
“Now we are also able to have matches between girls and boys,” he says. “That makes them proud of themselves. Now they are able to tell their parents that ‘I can do it.'”
For these girls, playing cricket is a break from the societal duties that come with being a girl. For a few hours a day, they shed gender norms and are able to be kids.
“When we are playing a match, I feel like I am wearing a jersey for Team India,” says 10-year-old Harsimrit Kaur. “When I hit a six, I know I did it for India. When I play I feel only one thing, that I am not playing for India now but I will play for India’s cricket team someday.”
Harsimrat Kaur, 10, says playing a match feels like ‘I am wearing a jersey for Team India’ (pic BBC)
Shergill has the support of strong women too. His eldest sister, Jasveer Kaur, affectionately called Bua, is one of Shergill’s biggest champions. She comes to the pitch at least once a week to comfort players that get hurt or just to watch. She knows too well the pressures of being a woman in this society.
Married at 19, becoming a mother shortly thereafter, Jasveer cries at the thought of any of these girls meeting the same fate. “All my feeling and hopes were suppressed because I was a woman,” she says. “I was asked to work at home and cook also. Now I want that if I can help girls to do something I don’t need anything else in life. I want to use all my power to help girls grow.”
Shergill may be selling a dream to become a professional cricket player and represent India around the world. But the lessons he is teaching the these young women is so much more valuable.
“There is no difference between a girl and a boy,” says Simranjit. “Whatever boys can do, girls can do too.”
(BBC)
Sri Lanka will face India in the semi-finals of Asian Games men’s tournament after their quarter-final clash against Nepal was abandoned without a ball being bowled in Nisshin, Japan. The game was called off prior to the toss, with rain having begun hours prior to the scheduled 9am local start and not looking like abating.
Sri Lanka’s progression was assured by virtue of their higher seeding in terms of the ICC T20I rankings – Sri Lanka, alongside India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the four seeded teams in the tournament. On Monday, India had qualified over Afghanistan after another washout, again by virtue of their higher. Similarly, Pakistan’s qualification was assured following a rain abandonment in their quarter-final against Hong Kong.
In the 2022 Asian Games, Sri Lanka had been eliminated at the quarter fial stages by Afghanistan. Another washout in the semis against, India though, will see the latter qualify for the final.
A few hours later, the fourth quarter-final between Bangladesh and Malaysia was also washed out. Bangladesh will now face Pakistan in the first semi-final on October 1, followed by India vs Sri Lanka later on the same day
(Cricinfo)
The Bangladesh vs Malaysia abandonment on Tuesday completed a quartet of rained off matches in the Asian Games men’s tournament. The match was called off two hours before the toss, with the teams told not to even turn up at the venue.
Bangladesh, by virtue of higher seeding, go through to the semi-finals where they will now face Pakistan on October 1. Earlier in the morning, the Sri Lanka vs Nepal fixture was also called off due to rain, with Sri Lanka advancing into the semi-finals where they will meet India.
There is, however, some good news, as the weather forecast in Nisshin is better for the semi-final and the medal match day, on October 1 and 3, respectively.
In the last edition (2023), Bangladesh had lost to India in the semi-final but won the third-place playoff against Pakistan to take home the bronze medal. They had won the bronze in 2014 as well and Bangladesh’s best finish was winning the gold medal in 2010, when they beat Afghanistan in the final.
(Cricinfo)
by Reemus Fernando
World javelin leader Rumesh Tharanga lived up to his billing to win Sri Lanka a highly anticipated gold medal, overcoming wet weather and a slow runway at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, on Monday.
The overwhelming favourite after a string of victories at global level this year, Tharanga made an unlikely start, opening with 73.52m in the first round and trailing his South Asian rivals, including reigning Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan. At the halfway mark he surged ahead with a massive 88.33m, then sealed the contest with 88.55m.
”He rose like a true champion at the most crucial moment. It was an incredible performance in these wet conditions,” veteran coach Susantha Fernando, who watched from the stands, told The Island. “I was blessed to see a Sri Lankan win gold at back-to-back Asian Games.” Fernando’s own charge, Tharushi Karunaratne, won the 800m at the last edition. He was one of the team coaches at the venue yesterday.
The 23-year-old, trained by Tony Prasanna, arrived in Japan as world No. 1 and the season’s leading thrower. In June he became the first Sri Lankan to throw beyond 90m, launching a national-record 92.62m at the Rome Diamond League. In July he beat India’s Neeraj Chopra to take Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow, and this month he won the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest. He also became the first Sri Lankan to win the Diamond League title. He was the only thrower in the field with two throws beyond 92m this season.
With such a reputation to carry, a Games record (89.15m) was widely expected, and Tharanga came close, but nearly every thrower struggled in the wet conditions.
With Chopra absent, India’s Y. Singh and R. Yadav took silver and bronze with 85.72m and 84.35m respectively. Nadeem finished just outside the podium with 80.29m. Former national record holder and Olympian Sumedha Ranasinghe was sixth with 78.08m.
Akalanka impresses in hurdles
Meanwhile, hurdler Ayomal Akalanka produced one of Sri Lanka’s best performances among those who narrowly missed the podium, finishing fifth in the men’s 400m hurdles.
Running from lane two, the 20-year-old clocked 49.37 seconds against an elite continental field. The former Ambagamuwa Central Udubulathgama athlete stayed in contention throughout the final and finished ahead of Japan’s Kazuki Kurokawa, India’s Santhosh Kumar Tamilarasan and Kazakhstan’s Vyacheslav Zems.
Qatar’s Bassem Hemeida won gold in 47.82, with Japan’s Taiju Goto taking silver in a personal best of 47.93. Taiwan’s Chung-wei Lin claimed bronze in a personal best 48.74, and his compatriot Jian-rong Chen was fourth in 49.25.
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