With the WPL coming in, we would be at par with Australia and England: Mithali Raj

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely phenomenal for women’s cricket in India. First, the launch of the first ever Women’s Premier League (WPL) saw five franchises spend over INR 4600 crores in order to own a team in the new league. Later, the U19 team emerged victorious in the inaugural edition of the Women’s U19 T20 World Cup. 

Thus, it can be said that women’s cricket in India is going into the right direction but as per former skipper Mithali Raj, it is still not at par with Australia and England at the moment. Mithali feels that with Women’s IPL rolling in and more players getting opportunity even at the U19 level, India can soon be a superpower in women’s cricket.

“I would say we have not really arrived there yet (at par with Australia and England), but maybe in terms of standards, yes. But overall, in a couple of years with the WPL coming in, we would. Those countries have their leagues in place (Women’s Big Bash and The Hundred). Somewhere, whoever comes in as a replacement, they are equally good in terms of bench strength. We are not entirely there, but we will eventually get there in a year or two depending upon how WPL starts to roll,” said Raj in an interview with Indian Express.

We have reached a stage where reaching the knockouts is not enough: Mithali

She also stated that qualifying for the knockouts is not enough for the team now. With the rise in salary and facilities, she expects the team to take up the challenge and do well in ICC tournaments as the expectations keep increasing with every good performance of theirs. The senior women's team made it to the final of the 2017 World Cup and the 2020 T20 World Cup, but lost the title match to England and Australia respectively.

“We have reached a stage where reaching the knockouts is not enough. If you were to compare ourselves with the rest of the world other than Australia and England or even New Zealand, there are other teams who are at a stage where we were a few years back. If we are getting all the facilities — hike in match fees, getting the camps we required and going early to acclimatise, then yes. The expectations will once increase. People will not be content with just playing the semi-finals and final. They will be expected to win,” the 40-year-old said.

For a better experience: Download the CricTracker app from the IOS App Store and Google Play Store