Indian pace bowler Shikha Pandey, through a series of tweets, expressed her views on the growing suggestions for rule changes in women’s cricket, calling most ideas “superfluous”, instead stressing on the need to market the game better to expand its audience.
Pandey, part of the India team that reached the final of the historic Women’s T20 World Cup earlier this year, insisted that women’s sport should not be compared with men’s sport, and that women’s cricket should be viewed as a different sport without modifying the “very fabric of the game to attract audience”.
Pandey’s teammate Jemimah Rodrigues, in the recently conducted 100% Innovations session, said that she was open to the idea of shorter pitch in women’s cricket as a possible means of improving the game and attracting more audience. Pandey, however, called the idea “dubious”, even though she agreed with commentator Ian Smith’s suggestion to comparatively reduce ball size.
Her tweet series, which was praised by many including Australia’s Megan Schutt and England’s Danni Wyatt, concluded with the suggestion of a bottom-up approach where increased financial support is provided at the grassroots level. “Heavy investments at grassroot levels, equal playing opportunities, zero discrimination etc.
“A sport that 86,174 spectators turned up to watch on March 8, 2020 and several million watched live on their television sets…They saw something special in us, and here’s hoping you do too!”
