‘Same impact as 1983’: BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia makes huge statement ahead of Women’s World Cup final | Cricket News

BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia said the board remained committed to promoting women’s red-ball cricket and was working to increase the number of Test matches and multi-day matches in the domestic circuit. Speaking after India’s record-breaking run against Australia in the Women’s ODI World Cup semi-final, Saikia praised the Harmanpreet Kaur-led team for their remarkable performance and said the growing support for women’s cricket is evident. “The BCCI is strongly committed to increasing the number of Test matches for women as well as increasing the volume of multi-day matches at the domestic level,” Saikia told PTI. “Basically, women are playing more white-ball cricket – T20Is and ODIs. About three years ago, India started playing multi-day (Test) cricket again with Australia, New Zealand and England as well. When Jay Shah was BCCI secretary, he took a special initiative to promote women’s Test cricket. So we are now playing Test matches.” Saikia recognized the need to strengthen the domestic structure with longer format tournaments to help players adapt to Test cricket. “At the senior level, we need to have more multi-day tournaments, that is an area we need to work on. All our domestic tournaments are mainly T20 or 50 over matches. Perhaps we will have to introduce tournaments having multi-day competitions, just like the Ranji Trophy for men,” he said. On India’s schedule, Saikia added: “We are already playing Test matches against England and Australia, but we need to find a way to include multi-day matches in all bilateral series.” The BCCI official also reflected on the impact of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), crediting it with changing the landscape of women’s cricket in India. “When the WPL was introduced in a very professional manner with a lot of sponsorship, viewership, television and digital platforms, there was a paradigm shift in women’s cricket in India,” he said. Saikia further said that a World Cup victory could take the game to new heights. “Now if we win this trophy, it can definitely have the same impact as it did in 1983. Women’s cricket has already made its mark, but this will take them even further,” he said.

He also highlighted the overwhelming response at the DY Patil Stadium, calling it a sign of how far women’s football has come. “It was a packed stadium at DY Patil, which was not very common before. It gave a lot of volume to the future success of Indian women’s cricket,” Saikia said.