Amonth of women’s power has perhaps done more to end mansplaining about cricket and increase the respect for the women’s game than anything else in recent years. At one point in the tournament, when India’s campaign was faltering, the knives were out – the team was accused of wasting the BCCI’s money and not doing justice to the facilities that the Board had provided the cricketers. The World Cup triumph will taste much sweeter for all the criticism the players had to brush aside on their way to the podium. It is, of course, nobody’s case that the women’s team should not be criticised, but the criticism should be about how the women in blue conduct themselves on the field of play — it should not take the form of gender-related barbs or accusations of money being mispent on women’s cricket.

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