With the IPL’s initial success in the United Arab Emirates, the spotlight will also be on the forthcoming T20 Challenge Cup for women there. Indian skipper Mithali Raj is excited and is sure that the November mini-tournament will also help to revive India’s women’s cricket. In an interview, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, she speaks about different problems surrounding women’s cricket.
With 40 days left for the women’s challenge, how can arrangements be made without any tournament after the end of the T20 World Cup in early March?
BCCI arranged a few sessions with the sports psychologist for the children, helping us cope with anxiety and uncertainties during the lockdown. Support staff have been in touch, including our coach, WV.
Raman, helping us with the stuff we need to focus on. He (Raman) was really proactive, reaching out to me as I am the captain of the ODI team, coordinating our schedules with officials from BCCI. The girls are toiling, with the women’s challenge and other series in the pipeline.
It is good that different academies are opening up in a gradual way. The girls will resume playing cricket and training on the field. Our coach has been providing us with tasks, and we have to send daily updates on our health. As normal, it is slowly getting to as usual business.
The BCCI is supposed to name the squads and schedule them in a few days (for the three-team event). How hard is it to plan for a tournament in the midst of a pandemic?
There are a few challenges, but everyone in the world faces problems adapting to the difficulties presented by the pandemic.
A small private academy, one difficulty we face now is that we don’t get many bowlers to bowl within nets because the academies are not yet working at full strength. We can’t just walk in the gyms at any time, but only in a time slot that’s allocated to us.
But that’s for our protection and our own precautions. BCCI tries to bring the girls together for a camp, too. That’s going to help them regroup and work in tandem.
The 2021 World Cup has been postponed, the England tour of India has been called off, and no news of other tournaments is available. How do you feel about this uncertainty?
Things are now looking up. Earlier, the girls had hardly any ground exposure due to the pandemic and lockdown, so it was not possible to plan a series or send the squad.
I can talk for the girls, and since they understand the crisis the world and our nation are facing, everybody was okay with that. The situation is now stronger in certain countries where the pandemic arrived earlier.
People are learning to deal with this by taking protections now that we have an understanding of this virus. To coordinate a few episodes, BCCI is trying to hammer out modalities with other boards. We are both hopeful that things will be on track in the immediate future.
Will a women’s T20 challenge preparatory camp be safer in the UAE or India where there are high cases of Covid?
That is to be looked into by BCCI. It’s not an easy job to build a bio-bubble, and it takes a lot of work. We’re all players under contract. We would be more than happy to enter and regroup and get back to work wherever the camp is structured.
