Give us more Tests, says Raj. The women’s team, since debuting on the international stage in October 1976 against the West Indies, has played 36 Tests till date; its last Test was on November 16, 2014 against the South African women (which, by the way, India won by an innings and 34 runs). Raj herself, arguably among the best players in the world, made her Test debut in January 2002 and, over the next 14 years, has played a grand total of ten Tests.
The likes of Raj and Kaur have consistently claimed for their peers the opportunity to play, to showcase their skills and to improve in the heat of competition at the domestic and international levels. The men have a Future Tours Program, a schedule, to tell them who they are playing this time next year; the women however have neither a program, nor a schedule, nor any sense of what the future holds.
A clip from my latest column for Scroll, which starts with Narendra Modi’s Mann ki Baat and ends with my own kaam ki baat.
PS: Reminds me, I now write a fortnightly cricket/sports column for Scroll. Past columns are here.
Smoke Signals 