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Indian women's cricket's 1983 moment: World Cup victory a vindication of ongoing revolution
A revolution was underway; Sunday night was mere vindication, however necessary, of India’s growing stature as a cricketing powerhouse, men and women both.
All of eight and a half years old, VVS Laxman was so captivated by watching Kapil Dev’s team lift the 60-over World Cup in 1983 against all odds that he was doubly determined to immerse himself in the pursuit of cricketing excellence. Some 28 years later, when still an active player, he turned down an invitation from then head coach Gary Kirsten to witness the 2011 final at the Wankhede Stadium, struggling to explain to his four-and-half-year-old son why he had tears when Mahendra Singh Dhoni smacked the winning six.
At the DY Patil Stadium on Sunday, Laxman was one of 45,000-plus entranced spectators who basked in the reflected glory emanating from Harmanpreet Kaur’s side going the distance in the 50-over Women’s World Cup. “Incredible. Just incredible. I had goosebumps.”
Arguably the most attractive batter to emerge from the country, Laxman is currently the boss of the Centre of Excellence (formerly the National Cricket Academy), the excellent, state-of-the-art facility on the outskirts of Bengaluru. Even a half-dozen years back, the NCA had the notorious if unfounded reputation of being a ‘rehab’ centre tending to Indian cricketers nursing injuries. Rahul Dravid first, and then his favourite batting partner, have erased that unwanted tag; the CoE today is hailed as a stepping stone to success and a finishing school, as much as anything else.
Programmes at the CoE are designed to ensure that progress is constant and exponential. And these programmes aren’t just for the boys and the men. There is equal emphasis on girls and women. The same yardsticks apply across age groups and genders – commitment to excellence, uncompromising attention to fitness and nutrition and dietary requirements, access to the best when it comes to training and coaching and sports science.
In various quarters, 2 November 2025 is being held up as the equivalent in the women’s game of 25 June 1983, when Kapil’s Devils ruled over Lord’s. That need not actually be the case, you know.
Even before 1983, India had tasted grand, if sporadic, success on the world stage – Test series wins in New Zealand in 1967-68, in the West Indies and England within a few months of each other in 1971, and a world record chase of 404 in Port of Spain in 1976. But One-Day International cricket had yet to fire the imagination. The players themselves refused to buy into the concept, which made it that much more difficult for the fans to embrace the limited-overs game. It was viewed as a hit-and-giggle format (not unlike the T20s until Dhoni’s lads surged to the World Cup title in 2007); 1983 changed all that with the one-day game threatening to supplant Test cricket.
There was barely a structure to the men’s game at the time, limited collective awareness of the importance of fitness, very little knowledge of the modern trends that had driven cricket elsewhere, especially in scientific temper-obsessed Australia. 1983 triggered a revolution; visionary administrators recognised cricket as the cash cow it was, but they weren’t so blinded by the lure of the lucre that they didn’t invest most of the returns back into the game. Indian cricket wasn’t the same again.
Contrast this with the health of the women’s game now. The days when the pioneers of women’s cricket in India, the Shantha Rangaswamys and the Diana Eduljis and the Sudha Shahs and the Shubhangi Kulkarnis, were forced to raise money for representative matches, compelled to stay in dormitories with ‘cockroaches and rats for company’, and had to necessarily travel by train without reserved tickets, have long passed into history. Since 2006, when women’s cricket came under the fold of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (which had no choice but to toe the world body’s line), there has been a gradual uptick in facilities. Initially reluctant to embrace the women’s game, the BCCI walked the extra mile to ensure parity on various fronts once it shed its misogyny. Women’s cricket ceased being an afterthought; it was no longer viewed as a burden that had to necessarily be endured and tolerated.
It helped that the ladies put the sport on the world map. Anjum Chopra, Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami were world-beaters individually – there was a certain poignancy to Harmanpreet’s team ensuring that each of these former captains held the trophy aloft at the DY Patil Stadium – and while collectively, the team wasn’t a sustained force, it did have its moments, most notably by making the finals of the World Cup in 2005 and then, more influentially, in 2017.
Attitudes and mindsets started to change after their stirring run to the 2017 final in England, fuelled by Harmanpreet’s unbeaten 171 against Australia in the semifinals. Parents were no longer reluctant to allow daughters to chase cricketing dreams and aspirations. As academies mushroomed across the country, there were nearly as many young girls (okay, slight exaggeration) as boys thronging these training hubs. A revolution was already underway; Sunday night was mere vindication, however necessary, of India’s growing stature as a cricketing powerhouse, men and women both.
What will this historic, unprecedented triumph do? It will force even more young girls to aspire to be the next Harmanpreet, the next Smriti Mandhana, the next Jemimah Rodrigues, the next Deepti Sharma. In team sports, true role models emerge from title triumphs, not individual brilliance in losing causes. This win will not just encourage girls and women and boys and men to dare to dream, but to believe. Believe in the power of the unit, believe that hard work and commitment and sincerity and integrity will not go unrewarded.
India backed up the 1983 tryst with history with a string of spectacular performances overseas, winning the inaugural Asia cup in Sharjah in 1984 and the World Championship of Cricket in Australia the following year to prove that Lord’s was no flash in the pan. That’s the next challenge ahead of the ladies, once we all collectively move past this justified humongous euphoria – to build on the gains of the Women’s Premier League and the World Cup title, and to ensure that the ‘goosebumps’ Laxman alluded to become commonplace.
