How Railways has been silent revolutionist in Indian Women’s cricket

Yet another Senior Women’s One Day League and another time Railways went on to clinch the trophy. It’s not a habit anymore, it has become a legacy. As Women’s Cricket flourishes more and more in India, here we present a real unsung force behind this growth: Indian Railways.

The Railways Women’s Cricket Team the most successful Indian domestic team in Women’s Cricket circuit. The team is run by Railways sport Promotion Band (RSPB): one of the most dedicated, acclaimed and respected sport organizations of India which promotes as much as almost 30 sport disciplines. A report of PTI says, as of mid 2017, they already had 20 Padma Shris, 4 Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardees, 158 Arjuna awardees, 9 Dhyanchand awardees and 7 Dronacharya awardees in their kitty; the number tally has gone up in last few years too. RSPB is a member of the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) too.

Railways sport Promotion Band logo 

 

 Shear Dominance in Domestic Leagues:

The major two domestic leagues in Senior Women’s cricket in India are Senior Women’s One Day League (Started in 2006-2007) and Senior Women’s T20 League (Started in 2009-2010). From the very beginning of both of both of these two tournaments, it’s only one team dominating, Railways. They won 12 of the 14 edition of One day format and 9 out of 11 editions in T20 format, 7 of which came in consecutive years from the start of the tournament.

As they say, “Competitiown in Railays team is tougher than Indian Cricket Team itself”:

Can’t absolutely reject those words actually. For years after years, Indian Cricket Team has consisted normally more than even 7-8, most of the times the count going to even 10 or more Railways cricketer throughout the time. Guess what, in the recent semi final against Bengal they has 10 players in the starting XI who have represented India, the other one member, Asha Joy, is regular member in Indian a team and their bench also included 4 international Indian players; 8-9 of which was the part of the Indian Team against recently concluded series against South Africa. In the final against Jharkhand also something near similar spectacle is seen.

Offering jobs to Women Cricketers:

Indian Railways is the only organization till now that offers job to women cricketers on regular basis. No doubt that is one of the biggest steps from them in order to prosper Women’s Cricket. This gives so much financial stability to the cricketers that they can fully focus on their game forgetting all the tensions of food, shelter and future. Every railways cricketers admits that, admire that and thankful for that. And the achievement for the larger aspect for railways is being able to take up this same initiative in other sports too.

Awarding their cricketers after 2017 World Cup show:

Well, in the light of 2nd point mentioned about, lets mention, the runner-up Indian women’s team in 2017 ODI World Cup, India has 10 players from Railways team. After the inspiring show in that World Cup, which actually brought the format to some limelight for the very first time, Railways announced a cash award of 13 lakh rupees for each of the 10 cricketers. The blistering 171 not out performance against Australia by Harmanpreet Kaur earned her also a promotion to gazette rank.

Well organized and dedicated player selection system:

Team railways is simply the hub of handpicked good cricketers from the different parts of India. They keep on monitoring players from different domestic teams throughout the seasons. If anyone catches their attention they simply offer them: sometimes team inclusion, sometimes both job and team inclusion. They also have 8 regional teams like North Central Indian Railways Women, Southern Indian and so on each on which recruits player by advertisement, trial and selection method. Indian railways also conducts a tournament among them sometimes and players gets selected to main team of Railways from there too, 2017/18 edition of which was won by Western Indian Railways Wome and the 2019 edition was won by South Central Railway. A truly brilliant set up.

From Aspiring One to Inspiring One: Player Growth:

At last, we come to the final part, nurturing the handpicked bucket of players to make them international icons. The railways team has always been stars of the game of that time, be it Diana Edulji back then or Mithali Raj now, railways team never got short of global stars in the dressing room to guide players and give then the taste of international standard straight away. The healthy environment and ever-so-helping seniors hardly hesitates to guide newcomers for the sake of betterment of India in the sport. A big squad with lots and lots of talented players also keeps the competition high always, as they say “healthy competition”, like, a bad match and global stars like Punam Yadav and D Hemalatha lost their place in starting lineup against Bengal; yes, this is the level of their bench strength. Another big thing is their approach for betterment of every player. Mithali Raj revealed in a documentary by femalecricket.com website how each batswomen gets chance to practice for almost 20-25 minutes everyday and bowlers bowling non-stop for hours after hours along with fitness practice.

And this is a big secret behind the rise of the next gen superstars like Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Arundhati Reddy, Asha Joy, Mona Meshram, Nuzrat Parween, D Hemalatha along with now flourishing players like Punam Raut, Poonam Yadav with legands like Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur.

Here’s a lot of thank you from KheLoVerse to Indian Railways with loads of admiration love and congratulations for another Senior Women's One Day League championship . Keep up the good work and hold the head of Indian Female Cricket high. We really need more organizations like you.

An Article by: Arpan Purkait