© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
India’s women’s cricket team has made history, lifting the ICC Women’s World Cup for the first time with a thrilling win over South Africa in Mumbai. Led by Harmanpreet Kaur, with Deepti Sharma’s five-wicket haul and Shafali Verma’s sparkling 87, this was a victory years in the making.
As the nation celebrates, here are three essential reads that chart how women’s cricket reached this defining moment:
A landmark work of sports journalism, Free Hit (Harper Sport India / HarperCollins Publishers) tells the story of Indian women’s cricket.Covering its journey from its underfunded beginnings to its modern-day fame. Author Suprita Das, a veteran sports journalist and RedInk Award winner, draws on years of reporting to trace the journeys of Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, the stalwarts who built the platform for today’s victory. Das captures both the triumphs and the institutional neglect that defined the sport’s early decades, offering rare insight into the systemic gender biases female athletes fought to overcome. This is the essential backstory — the book that explains how India got from 2017’s heartbreak to 2025’s glory.
In this history of the game, published by Westland Sport, authors Sidhanta Patnaik and Karunya Keshav, who were among the few Indian journalists present at Lord’s for the 2017 World Cup final, trace the sport’s journey from the 1970s — when teenaged pioneers such as Diana Edulji, Shanta Rangaswamy, and Shubhangi Kulkarni played for the sheer joy of it, right up to to the modern professional era. Their narrative captures the turning point of Harmanpreet Kaur’s 171 not out in 2017, the moment when India woke up to women’s cricket. The book is an indispensable reference for anyone who wants to understand where this win came from.
A practical guide and passionate manifesto rolled into one, Women and Girls’ Cricket ( Self-published Kindle Edition) comes from Lydia Greenway, a former England international who played 14 Tests, 126 ODIs, and 85 T20Is, and later founded Cricket for Girls. Drawing on her global experience as a player, coach, and broadcaster, Greenway offers hands-on advice for schools, clubs, and communities on how to nurture women’s cricket, complete with insights from stars such as Charlotte Edwards, Heather Knight, and Isa Guha. India’s win will inspire thousands of young girls to pick up a bat. Greenway’s book shows how to turn that inspiration into sustainable opportunity.
