Highlights!, the monthly newsletter from the Sports Law & Policy Centre, brings to you the latest developments from the Equal Hue Project and recent law and policy updates on women’s sport.
Ujwal Singh interviewed Anjum Chopra (former Indian cricketer) to know her thoughts on improving the state of women’s cricket in India. Ms. Chopra highlights that in order to fuel the engine of women’s cricket in India, it is important that the challenges faced by women cricketers are realised, addressed and monitored in a proper manner. She suggests that Indian women cricketers need to be given more opportunities to play professional cricket, and a proper structural framework and long term process and strategy needs to be adopted to bring a paradigm shift in women’s cricket in India. However, she cautions that women’s cricket should not just emulate a process that worked for men’s cricket and should follow a process and adopt a structure of their own.
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In this piece for ESPNcricinfo, Shashank Kishore writes about the increasing popularity of cricket in Brazil, especially among girls. The article highlights the steps taken by Cricket Brazil to popularize and develop the sport at the grassroots in the country and the impact cricket has had on the lives of underprivileged kids. The article also sheds light on various initiatives taken by Cricket Brazil to support women cricketers of the country, such as handing out central contracts to top women cricketers, taking care of players’ dietary requirements, and providing players with health insurance, equipment and clothing. The article further talks about the challenges faced by Cricket Brazil in terms of developing local resources, such as umpires, scorers, kit manufacturers, ground staff, to cater to the increasing popularity of the game in the country.
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The Tokyo Olympics were the most gender-balanced Olympic Games in history, with nearly 49% of participating athletes being women. In this piece for the Hindustan Times, Snehal Pradhan discusses the stupendous performance of Indian female athletes at the Tokyo Olympics. She sheds light on the initiatives taken by the International Olympic Committee to bridge gender inequalities existing across many Olympic disciplines and how these initiatives have played an important role in advancing gender equality in sport.
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In this article titled “Why the Hundred double headers have boosted women’s game“, Dr. Rafaelle Nicholson talks of how the event has been structured in a way that it promotes equality between men’s cricket and women’s cricket. She highlights how men’s and women’s matches being played as double-headers at the same venue has brought men’s and women’s cricket on the same platform. The article details how innovative marketing of the matches, increased media attention and growing interest among viewers to watch women’s matches are fuelling the growth of women’s cricket. In a separate Sky Sports piece, former and current English cricketers share their thoughts on how The Hundred has boosted women’s cricket in terms of developing players, attracting new players to the game and generating more interest around the game.