MUMBAI: The Women’s T20 Challenge, which BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had confirmed to PTI in August as “very much on”, looks to be in limbo. Cut to present, there has been no development since and no further official word on the matter.
The players and the support staff have not been informed of a camp as of now, nor have they heard details of the three-team Challenge from the Indian cricket board. The tenure of the previous women’s selection committee, led by Hemlata Kala (chairperson), Shashi Gupta, Anjali Pendharkar, Lopamudra Banerjee and Sudha Shah, officially ended on January 22. Soon after, the board had invited applications to fill up the panel, and nearly 20 applications came in. Since then? Nothing.
With local governments in India not allowing any mass gatherings, players have had to resort to individual training at home with limited resources. The biggest challenge for Indian players is that they have not trained and played for more than six months. So fitness becomes a key hurdle, and the silence from the BCCI has only added to a sense of despondency.
Additionally, the BCCI still has not named anyone to look after women’s cricket, following the resignation of general manager Syed Saba Karim in July. The women’s team last played in the T20 World Cup held in March in Australia and finished runners-up.
IF (and that’s a big IF now) the event does take place, it will comprise three teams, and have seven matches, with two round-robin stages and a final. Ground reality: None of the three venues – Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah – have been formally told to be ready to host the tournament.
What is becoming more and more evident is that Sourav Ganguly is long on talk and VERY short on delivery. Maybe the “Prince of Kolkata” is taking inspiration from Vinod Rai, about whose tenure as chairman of the Supreme Court- appointed Committee of Adminstrators, the less said the better.
