Harmanpreet Kaur of India celebrates with the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup trophy along with her teammates after winning the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup India 2025 Final match between India and South Africa at the Dr Sports Academy. DY Patila on November 2, 2025 in Navi Mumbai, India. (Photo: Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images) Drenched in sweat, roaring with joy and hands clasped in gratitude. The images from Sunday night that sparked widespread celebrations across the country will now forever grace the vestibule of India’s cricketing corridors.It took a while and now it’s here. Now that it’s here, what do we do with it? Can this coveted title do for women’s cricket in India and around the world what 1983 did for the men? Can women’s cricket now add another layer to a sport that has been India’s biggest export to the world since the turn of the century? Can Harmanpreet’s team make future generations fall in love with women’s cricket the way MS Dhoni’s men from 2007 to 2011 made young India bat and ball? Without 1983, there could not be 2007, 2011, and 2024. In that sense, the possibilities around what 2025 can bring are limitless.
Harmanpreet Kaur gets emotional after leading India to World Cup glory
The Indian cricket board, which has done a great job over the past five years in giving these women the confidence to follow an untroubled path, now has a greater responsibility for its own creation.By bringing pay parity to women’s cricket two years ago, enabling the T20 league to transform the financial fortunes of female cricketers around the world and laying the brick-by-brick framework for the prosperity of gender neutrality in the sport, the BCCI has been busy with essential work. And now that India has cleared the first major hurdle in knowing what success tastes like, it has become more of a cricket board’s responsibility to keep the job going.
This is due to Jay Shah’s vision which started with pushing for equal match fees in 2022
Roger Binny
“This triumph comes at a time when women’s cricket in India is getting the respect it deserves. And the timing is not a coincidence, but the result of valuing the work and value of our women cricketers on par with the men. This is due to Jay Shah’s vision, which began with the push for equal match fees in 2022. Former CI president and the pivotal moment in the start of the transformation, Roger BC Binny.Binny was sitting in the chair when the first work began on the redesign of women’s cricket. “By supporting decisive investment, launching the WPL with strong media rights, reviving domestic red-ball cricket for women and adding age-group pathways such as the U-15 One-Day Trophy, and recognizing that pay parity was not just a promise,” he adds.Binny will be the first to admit that the work cannot end here. In fact, the only way forward now will have to be building on what has been done so far. The brand around women’s cricket has established itself in the last three years. Her legacy will have to be cemented in the coming years.“For too long, endorsement deals for female athletes have been token gestures reserved for a few individual stars and often at a fraction of the cost of their male counterparts. That is now history,” says Vinit Karnik, managing director of content, entertainment and sports at WPP Media Southeast Asia.
So far, only 5% of the total pie of Indian athletes has come from female athletes and cricketers. After this victory, the 2025 release dates (which will be released next year) should tell a completely different story
Vinit Karník
“The financial gain is not limited to the winning team. The victory acts as a massive proof of concept for investing in women’s sports infrastructure and professional leagues across all areas,” she adds.The most immediate and tangible impact of this victory can be expected to come from advertisers as marketers will now look to aggressively sign up women cricketers as brand endorsers, which will only mean more luster across the industry.
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To quote BR Ambedkar, the progress of a community can be measured by the degree of progress achieved by women. That word couldn’t be truer at a better time.
