Cricket | 2023 could be India Women’s all-at-once year, after everything, everywhere in 2022

A title triumph in both events would be a dreamlike segue into the inaugural Women’s IPL (WIPL) — or whatever official name the league might eventually adopt — that launches in March. A trophy in even one of them might ring in seismic changes across the food chain of women’s cricket in India in a year likely to see an updated pay scale for the centrally contracted female cricketers.

The air crackles with optimism.

To anchor the start of the new year — especially its first half — in prospects of perfect outcomes for Indian women’s cricket is not being beside oneself with unfounded hope. The senior team enters the T20 World Cup as runners-up at the last edition of the tournament and holders of the first-ever Commonwealth Games silver medal in the women’s game. Their major-events mojo in recent years has been consistently superior to their record in bilateral contests, curiously contrary to how the men’s team has fared.

Australia, the opponent India Women came up short against at the last hurdle on both occasions, have been challenged most by them since India’s breakout 2017 ODI World Cup campaign. The recently concluded five-match T20I series between the two teams, played across Navi Mumbai and Mumbai last month, was as much a reminder of the trend, notwithstanding the 4-1 scoreline in favour of the victorious visitors.

India ran Australia close in that face-off, despite a major, last-minute pre-series rejig in their backroom staff that remained bereft of a designated head coach and bowling coach throughout the tour. India’s historic Super-Over win in the second T20I bookmarked the assignment, the performances of debutant Anjali Sarvani, the returning Devika Vaidya, and teen Richa Ghosh across the five matches sounding the highest note of good cheer.

India are a strong shout for the T20 World Cup, provided they put their house in order in time. They leave for South Africa next week for a triangular series that also features West Indies and serves as the last preparatory exercise before their quest for the elusive first world title renews.

Yet, whether at all the squad will travel to South Africa with a head coach or a bowling coach, or if batting coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar, appointed just three days out from the start of the Australia series, will continue in his unofficial position as the interim head coach, remains unclear still. As such, the BCCI hasn’t invited applications for either vacancy yet. And, as things stand, the Cricket Advisory Committee, which usually screens new applicants for these positions across the men’s and women’s teams, has little update on the proceedings.

The Under-19 mix, in contrast, looks a far more watertight, settled set-up to put one’s money on. It’s the ship you would want to be on when setting sail to witness a first-ever title-winning World Cup campaign in Indian women’s cricket history. For good reason.

They have won every series they have played in the three months leading up to the U-19 T20 World Cup. Their A team clinched the trophy in quadrangular series that also featured a B team, West Indies U-19s and Sri Lanka U-19s in November in Vizag. A 5-0 clean clean-sweep over New Zealand U-19s in Mumbai in early December then followed. And so did a 4-0 thumping of hosts South Africa U-19s in a five-match T20 contest that concluded earlier this week with one game abandoned due to wet outfield.

Stability at the helm in the coaching staff has also held them in good stead. Nooshin Al Khadeer, the former India spinner with a coaching résumé to envy in domestic cricket, was the India U-19 A team head coach in the quadrangular series. She continued in the role with the Under-19 national team for the victorious New Zealand and South Africa assignments.

Unsurprisingly, Al Khadeer, who has had successful stints with domestic heavyweights Railways as coach, has been entrusted with head coach duties with India for the Under-19 World Cup. Why the BCCI is yet to officially announce her appointment, though, is anyone’s guess.

While on the subject of official communication, it’s time a character you briefly encountered earlier in this narrative was reintroduced. Be informed, the out-of-sight, out-of-mind plotline doesn’t hold true for this piece or selection decisions concerning India Women in general, if your name is Shikha Pandey. Or, so we learnt in the closing days of an eventful 12 months that was 2022 for Indian women’s cricket.

Where it all began last year — for India Women, Pandey or the women’s game in the country — might be a bit of a blur. A look back could offer some perspective.

Proliferating possibilities, realigned timelines, the end of a generation, the start of a new era — 2022 had these, and much else, for women’s cricket in India. At the centre of it all was the senior national team, the focus of this almost-metaversal swirl of activity unseen in decades in the women’s game in the country.

Questionable selection calls, a recurrent theme through the best part of the year, rung in 2022. Pandey and Jemimah Rodrigues’ omission for the New Zealand tour and the ODI World Cup had jaws dropped, heads scratched.

India lost the ODI series and the contextless one-off T20I against New Zealand. COVID-enforced absences in the tourists’ XI raised eyebrows. The dearth of big knocks from then ODI vice-captain Harmanpreet raised questions. Perilously close to the start of the ODI World Cup, her place in the Mithali Raj-led 50-over side seemed anything but certain.

Though never entirely out of form in the months prior, Harmanpreet, however, roared back. In the nick of time, with aplomb, with a hundred at the World Cup in March. Smriti Mandhana, who struck a century of her own in the same match, against West Indies, helped kindle hopes of a memorable World Cup swansong for veterans Raj and Jhulan Goswami.

India were hardly ever a tight-knight group in the dressing room, or on the field during that tournament, though. Long-standing rifts deepened. New cracks emerged. They slumped to their worst performance at a major event since their group-stage elimination in the 2016 T20 World Cup at home. Their campaign culminated in an exit in the league stage.

Several highs, and the retirements on legends Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, punctuated the next few months. Either side of their second-place finish at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games under Harmanpreet, India thumped Sri Lanka across limited-overs formats, saw their longest-serving ODI player Raj call time on her a storied 23-year international career, farewelled Goswami at Lord’s with a first ODI series win in England since 1999 and reclaimed the Asia Cup.

Along the way, the whirligig that is Indian women’s cricket spun so frantically, it worked up the cricketing world around it. First, with the former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s public statement in February that a WIPL could, at long last, get off the ground in 2023. Later, Deepti Sharma’s law-abiding run-out of Charlie Dean at the non-striker’s end backing up at Lord’s rattled many cages.

The BCCI then found itself in the spotlight again, through their decision to offer equal match fee for international appearances to its centrally contracted men and women cricketers. Head coach Ramesh Powar’s transfer to the NCA and Kanitkar’s appointment emerged out of the blue. Long-awaited confirmation that the WIPL was on track emerged after the well-attended Australia home series. The year rounded off with the Indian board inviting bids for media rights for what’s likely to be a five-team tournament.

By far the biggest twist of the year took the form of a name few expected, though many a reasonable follower of the sport hoped, to see back in India reckoning. In a manner as unexpected as her exclusion from the Indian squad at the start of the year, Pandey, the experienced pace-bowling allrounder, was picked for the upcoming tri-series in South Africa and the T20 World Cup that follows.

How 2023 might shape up for India rests on the same sentiment as the women’s game in the country at large: hope. As does the world itself and most works of fiction. And with all the diverse subplots introduced in the year gone by, the narrative, far from a no-loose-ends kind of deal, might take you on a roller-coaster ride.

Grab your popcorn. Fasten your seatbelts. It’s showtime.