The WPL 2023 is going on and it is the biggest moment in women’s cricket because this will be the biggest league in the world and already value wise it has become the second most expensive women’s league in the world just behind the WNBA in the United States which has been going for over 3 decades and the players are extremely excited as are the fans to see their favorites in these teams.
However, there is one issue that has been bothering a lot of the fans of Indian team that out of the 5 Captains that have been announced for the league only 2 have been Indians and they are the biggest stars in Indian cricket and one of them has no captaincy experience and she will captain a side with the likes of Heather Knight, Sophie Devine, Elysse Perry etc.
So, let’s talk about why there is a lack of Indian captains:
The Indian Women’s cricket set-up was not as robust before
Before 2017, the Indian women’s cricket set-up was not known to everyone like it is today, very few knew the names of the players who used to play for the Indian team and therefore there was no leadership contenders and it was only after they reached the final of the 2017 ODI World Cup that the fans started taking Indian cricket seriously and 6 years is short time to find great leaders who could captain a side as big as these.
The Indian women’s domestic structure was weak
One of the biggest reasons for the lack of leaders In the Indian system is because the domestic structure for the women is a lot weaker as compared to the men and the matches are not shown on TV as well so nobody knows what happens in these matches and how well the young girls are performing and so they are not scrutinized and therefore no good captains are seen in India and now that the women play domestic cricket throughout the year in all the formats, a bunch of good leaders will be seen in the coming years.
There was ego clashes in the team before
This is an ugly truth about Indian women’s cricket before they started getting all the exposure In the last few years and it was the insecurity and the ego that was there in the Indian team and thus whoever was the captain at that time would not allow for another player to stand a chance to become the captain and overthrow her and so no leaders were made and hopefully with the WPL, there will be more leaders and future captains not just in the WPL but also for India moving forward and having more leaders means more balance in the team.
