'COVID-19 may have pushed back growth of women's cricket by 2 years': Mithali Raj

Legendary Indian skipper Mithali Raj feels COVID-19 forced break may have pushed back growth of women's cricket by at least two years.

Mithali, Indian women's ODI captain and world's highest run-getter in 50-over cricket, also said that a full-fledged women's IPL is still at least three years away although a fourth team can be ded for Challenger series.

"Unfortunately, women's cricket may have been set back by a couple of years by this pandemic as some of momentum that h been built between India's success in World Cup 2017 and World T20 2020 has been lost," 37-year-old Raj said during a webinar.

She was speaking at 'Re-Setting Sports Ecosystem: Opportunities in New Normal World' at FICCI FRAMES.

Mithali said that she h h talks with BCCI brass with regards to a dedicated calendar for women's national team.

"However, we have h discussions with BCCI to draw up a firm calendar for Indian women's team so that fans can regularly cheer for team.

" plans have obviously been disrupted but we believe we can re-build quickly. I think a full-fledged Women's IPL is still 2-3 years away but we would certainly look to have a fourth team in Women's Challenge that is played concurrently with IPL," said one of game's icons.

During webinar, DG (SAI) Sandip Prhan said that emphasis will be to present India's indigenous sports in a new avatar, which will "furr open up opportunities for Indian start-ups".

Prhan spoke about re-setting priorities.

"Being physical while leveraging digital is new normal, so we need to re-set, re-invent and re-work our priorities.

" SAI is organizing several online sports classes in association with National Sporting Federations, which includes interactive sessions with young athletes about ir techniques and how to develop ir overall physical skills and mental abilities." IOA president Narinder Batra said, "Corporates must opt at least one Indian sport and brocasters must allocate considerable time to promote m.

"Companies must realize that wave of one athlete performing well can indirectly impact lakhs of ors." Stressing furr on corporate partnerships, he said, "We cannot expect government to take upon itself onus of building a world-class sporting environment when it is stretched between many priorities of a developing economy, this is where corporate India needs to step in, and it has to be a collective effort."

Image Credits: PTI