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The day after India’s record-breaking win over Australia, the country woke up transformed.
Suddenly, everyone, from that uncle in the local train who once dismissed women’s cricket as “slow,” to the Twitter account that only posts memes about Kohli, had become an expert.
They were quoting strike rates, recalling Harmanpreet Kaur’s 89 as if they’d seen every ball, and confidently dropping names like Amanjot Kaur between sips of morning chai.
The same people who could hardly pronounce Jemimah Rodrigues last week now discuss her footwork with the seriousness of a selector.
For those still pretending to be experts, or those tired of correcting them, here’s your Women’s Cricket Cheat Sheet ahead of the big Sunday final, so that you can hold your own at the next dinner debate or office lunch.
The match that made everyone sit up
Let’s start with why everyone’s talking in the first place. At the DY Patil stadium, India chased down 338 to knock out the reigning champions, Australia — the highest successful run-chase in women’s ODI history.
Jemimah Rodrigues, dropped three times on her way to an unbeaten 127, played an innings that made even the most stubborn sceptics care. She was backed by captain Harmanpreet Kaur’s fluent 89 and sealed by Amanjot Kaur’s calm finish with nine balls to spare.
Australia, the seven-time world champions, looked uncharacteristically rattled, misfielding, bowling wides, and, finally, watching helplessly as India stormed into the final.
It was a statement that Indian women’s cricket has arrived, not as a subplot to the men’s game, but as its own epic.
But wait… women have been playing this game since 1745
The story of women’s cricket didn’t begin with the WPL or even with Harmanpreet’s sixes. It goes back nearly three centuries. The first recorded women’s match was held on 26 July 1745, in England, between eleven maids of Bramley and eleven maids of Hambledon, all dressed in white.
The Reading Mercury, which covered the spectacle, described it as an “unusual contest.” Little did it know it was witnessing the birth of a movement.
By the late 1800s, women’s clubs were forming across England, and in 1890, a team called the Original English Lady Cricketers toured the country, until their manager ran away with the profits.
Australia followed in 1894 with a women’s league, and South Africa, Canada and New Zealand soon joined. If you thought women’s sport began with hashtags, you’re off by about 300 years.
The Indian connection
India’s own tryst with women’s cricket goes back a century. By the 1920s, the country had women’s teams playing in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
During the 1926–27 MCC tour of India, the Delhi Ladies Cricket Club defeated the men’s Marylebone Cricket Club in a half-day game. It was one of the handful of matches the Englishmen lost on that tour. The result, naturally, never made the official records.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, the sport flourished quietly, largely supported by families of male cricketers.
In Mumbai, the Albees Cricket Club became a pioneer, featuring several women related to India’s Test players.
The long, slow rise to legitimacy
Organised women’s cricket took shape in 1926 when the Women’s Cricket Association (WCA) was founded in England.
Eight years later came the first international Test between England and Australia, and by 1973, women had their own World Cup (two years, funnily enough, before the men even got theirs).
Since then, Australia have built an empire, winning six of the 12 editions, while India have been the heartbreak specialists till now: runners-up in 2005, 2017, and now back in contention in 2025.
The past two decades have been transformative for India. In 2005, Mithali Raj led a team of underdogs to their first final. In 2017, Harmanpreet’s 171 not out against Australia lit a fire that never dimmed.
In 2022, Jhulan Goswami retired as the highest wicket-taker in women’s ODI history. And in 2023, the Women’s Premier League finally gave the players what they always deserved: money, visibility, and validation.
The ICC’s announcement that same year of equal prize money for men’s and women’s global tournaments was the world’s overdue acknowledgement that these athletes had arrived.
It took 280 years from the maids of Bramley to achieve pay parity, but progress, as they say, takes time.
The language problem (and the fix)
The vocabulary of "the gentleman's game" has always been stubbornly male. Words like “maiden over”, “third man” and “nightwatchman” were designed in an era that didn’t imagine women would play.
In 2021, the MCC finally modernised its Laws, replacing “batsman” with “batter.” Traditionalists scoffed, but historians had the last laugh. Because the term “batter” had already graced 18th-century scorecards, centuries before anyone debated gender in sport.
The only actual difference between men’s and women’s cricket today lies in the ball: women use one that’s a touch lighter, weighing up to 151 grams compared to the men’s 163.
Everything else, from field dimensions to dress codes, is identical. Players can even wear a hijab now, as long as it doesn’t obscure team logos. The game has changed not just in rules, but in grammar.
The faces you need to know (to sound smart)
To sound remotely credible in a conversation this week, you’ll need at least a handful of names.
Jemimah Rodrigues, a Mumbai-born, guitar-playing, ice-veined batter, has just redefined clutch cricket.
Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s captain and emotional anchor, has been the team’s heart since that 2017 Lord’s final.
Smriti Mandhana, with her effortless timing, could make even a defensive push look poetic.
Richa Ghosh, the fearless power-hitter, and Amanjot Kaur, the calm finisher who sealed India’s latest win, embody the team’s generational confidence.
Beyond India, you’ll want to remember Ellyse Perry, the Australian who played both cricket and football World Cups, and England’s Charlotte Edwards, whose name now adorns a global trophy.
And if anyone mentions “Betty Wilson,” nod appreciatively. Because she once scored a hundred and took ten wickets in the same Test. It’s the cricketing equivalent of walking on water.
This isn’t just India’s story. It’s the world’s reminder that women’s cricket has been quietly rewriting history since long before hashtags and hype.
It’s a sport that once saw a touring manager abscond with the earnings, that watched women sew their own uniforms, that survived on borrowed pitches and borrowed time.
So the next time you join a discussion about Jemimah Rodrigues’ cover drives or Harmanpreet Kaur’s captaincy, remember: you’re not just talking about a match. You’re talking about nearly three centuries of rebellion among whites.
And if you ever get caught bluffing, just smile knowingly and say, “I’ve been following women’s cricket since before it was cool.”
