8 years of India women’s cricket’s transformation:From scoring 300-par to equal pay and WPL initiation, IND’s road to WC 2025 final

On July 23, 2017, the India Women’s team, dreaming of winning the ODI World Cup at Lord’s Stadium in London, lost the final to England by 9 runs. At that time, Harmanpreet Kaur had scored a century in the semi-final and a half-century in the final. Still, the team could not win the title. 8 years later, Harman is still the captain, and once again, the Indian team has reached the final. In these 8 years, much has changed in Indian women’s cricket, along with the captaincy. The team is more confident than before and does not panic, no matter how big the target is. The dependence on Harman and Smriti Mandhana for victory has come down a bit. Meanwhile, many winners like Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh, and Amanjot Kaur have emerged. 5 pointers depicting India Women’s cricket’s evolution in the last 8 years 1. The beginning of change in 2017 In the 2017 ODI World Cup final, chasing a target of 229 runs, Team India had lost only 3 wickets for 191 runs. The team needed 38 runs from 43 balls with 7 wickets remaining. Unfortunately, the team could only manage 219 runs in 48.4 overs and lost the close match by 9 runs. After losing the final, Harmanpreet had said, ‘We couldn’t win, but now people know our name.’ However, this was neither the first nor the last time Team India lost a match despite coming so close to the target. Something similar happened against Australia in the 2022 Commonwealth Games final and the 2023 T20I World Cup semi-final. After such poor campaigns, Team India, on October 30, 2025, not only defeated 7-time champions Australia to secure a spot in the final, but also achieved the biggest target (339 runs) against them in the history of ODI World Cup knockout matches and Women’s ODIs. Moreover, 9 balls were still remaining in the Indian innings. Also Read: India Women vs South Africa Women ODI World Cup final 2025 preview 2. Salary equal to men’s players BCCI, and especially the current ICC Chief Jay Shah, made a significant contribution to promoting women’s cricket. During his tenure at BCCI, he improved coaching facilities, support staff, training, and analysis systems in women’s cricket. He not only increased the salaries of women cricketers in India but also made the prize money for ICC women’s tournaments even higher than that for men’s tournaments. In 2018, for the first time in India, fitness tracking and the Yo-Yo test were made mandatory for women players as well. In 2019, the central contracts for women players were revised, making the entire system professional. By 2025, contracted players started receiving 75 lakh to 3 crore rupees annually. In 2023, BCCI also announced equal match fees for both men’s and women’s players. Under this, 15 lakh rupees for a Test, 6 lakh rupees for an ODI, and 3 lakh rupees for a T20I were announced. Previously, the fee amount used to be quite low. Due to the surge in fees, women players in the country also rapidly started choosing cricket as a profession. 3. WPL: Strong foundation for change India’s women’s cricket was far behind England, Australia, and the West Indies in one major aspect. That was the franchise tournament for women players. For men, the IPL started in 2008 and was very successful, but the Women’s Premier League (WPL) could only begin in 2023. Before Jay Shah, all BCCI presidents had planned to start it, but Shah was the one to execute it. On platforms like WPL, young and domestic players get the opportunity to play and learn with foreign players. Not only that, players started facing international-level training, better coaches, and pressure situations for a month. Which benefited the India Women’s team. Just as the IPL gave stars like Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, and Abhishek Sharma to the men’s team, similarly, the WPL gave India young and aggressive players like Yastika Bhatia, Shreyanka Patil, Amanjot Kaur, Shri Charani, and Kranti Gaur. Yastika and Shreyanka could not be part of the World Cup due to injury, but the rest of the players made a significant contribution in taking India to the final. Also Read: India vs Australia 3rd T20I preview: Jasprit Bumrah 2 wickets shy of 100 T20I wickets 4. Coach Muzumdar’s attacking mindset Instilled the habit of scoring 300+ After losing the World Cup in 2017, India Women’s changed 4 coaches. These included professionals like Amol Muzumdar, after WV Raman and Ramesh Powar. Muzumdar was made the head coach in 2023 after which he instilled an attacking mindset in the ODI team. After defeating Australia in the semi-final, Harmanpreet Kaur stated in the post-match interview that they had started preparing for the tournament 2 years ago. That’s when we decided which playing-11 would be best in home conditions. Amol Sir (coach) also said during the practice match before the tournament that if we don’t consistently score 300 runs, we won’t be able to win the World Cup. From 1978 to 2022, the India Women’s team was able to cross the 300-run mark only 4 times in ODIs. In the last 2 years, the team has surpassed this threshold 12 times. Out of these, the team scored 300 runs 9 times this year alone. This included a best score of 435 runs against Ireland. The team also made 300-plus scores 3 times in one month against Australia. In the World Cup, Team India could not achieve the target of 289 runs against England. After this, coach Muzumdar angrily shouted at the players, saying that if we cannot achieve a target of less than 300, we should give up the dream of winning the World Cup. After which, the team scored 341 runs in the second innings of the World Cup semi-final, defeating and eliminating Australia.
5. New generation raises hopes Along with extracting players from WPL, the women’s team management also started focusing on domestic cricket. Until 2017, Team India was dominated by Delhi, Mumbai, and South India. BCCI’s new scouting system brought talented players to the team from small towns and villages like Raigarh, Hisar, Agra, and Silchar. Young players like 21-year-old left-arm spinner Shri Charani, 22-year-old Kranti Gaur, 25-year-old Pratika Rawal, 22-year-old wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh, and Amanjot Kaur showed a fearless mindset in the World Cup and won crucial matches for the team. Pratika was India’s second-highest scorer in the tournament, while Charani took 13 wickets. In the final against South Africa, the enthusiasm of these young players and the experience of Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Smriti Mandhana, and captain Harmanpreet Kaur could win the India Women’s team its first World Cup trophy.