New Delhi, March 15 Talismanic batter Virat Kohli expressed his views on the shift in perception of how people view women and girls in sports in India, saying that women’s sport is a massive part of the sporting culture catering to everyone in the country.
The last 10 years have seen athletes like Manu Bhaker, P.V. Sindhu, Mirabai Chanu, and Lovlina Borgohain clinch medals for India at the Olympics and give a big boost to women’s sports in the country. In terms of cricket, India's women’s team reaching the 2017 ODI World Cup final in England brought women’s cricket into the limelight. “They were their own catalysts and kind of put the attention onto them. I literally saw it happening in a time span of 6-7 years. The way they started playing, you could see that belief, and then people started engaging in that a lot.”
“And eventually it got to a place where, you know, the commercials became better, money was being infused into the women's game, and then you have the WPL,” said Kohli at the RCB Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit on Saturday.
The growth of women’s cricket in India has also been fueled by the U19 team winning back-to-back global titles and the advent of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), whose final will be played between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday.
Kohli further said women’s sports in India require more backing and infrastructural development so that they continue to be on the right path.
“Looking at men for the improvement of sport in any country, it has to be a collective. Sports culture includes everyone, and women's sport is a massive part of it, and we have so much data in women's sports, not just cricket but all the others.”
“We are creating individual activities over the year in tennis, badminton, wrestling, boxing. So, I think it's definitely heading in the right direction, and it needs more backing and more and more infrastructure to be developed,” he concluded.
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