Tier-2 takeover: Women’s ODI World Cup seeks new pastures | Cricket News – Times of India

When India hosted the ODI Women’s World Cup in 1997, the ultimate noticed a close to-capability turnout at Eden Gardens in Kolkata that left Aussie legend Belinda Clarke’s “eardrums buzzing”. The occasion, performed throughout 25 venues, was successful as matches performed in smaller centres set a precedent for balancing status with outreach, inspiring younger ladies from tier-2 cities to imagine that cricket may very well be a profession. The 2025 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, kicking off on Sept 30, goals to channelize this legacy however faces challenges in its venue choice. While Sri Lanka host Pakistan’s video games resulting from geopolitical constraints together with their very own video games, India have opted for Guwahati’s Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Indore’s Holkar Stadium and Visakhapatnam’s Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Stadium. Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, initially a centerpiece, was dropped after the Karnataka authorities withheld permission, citing security issues following a stampede throughout Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s IPL victory parade on June 4. A judicial fee report labelled Chinnaswamy ‘fundamentally unsafe’ resulting from its design flaws and insufficient entry-exit factors, forcing the BCCI to pivot to different venues like Thiruvananthapuram’s Greenfields Stadium. The 2025 venues, Guwahati, Indore, Visakhapatnam and Thiruvananthapuram — if it will get internet hosting rights — are tier-2 cities, which can not host any video games throughout subsequent 12 months’s males’s T20 World Cup. Visakhapatnam’s 27,500-seat stadium has hosted ODIs and T20Is however lacks the storied legacy of Mumbai’s Wankhede (33,000), website of the 2011 males’s World Cup triumph. Guwahati’s Barsapara (40,000) and Indore’s Holkar (30,000), although upgraded submit-2019, are seen as secondary in comparison with giants like Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium (1,32,000) or Kolkata’s Eden Gardens (68,000), each steeped in World Cup historical past. Former India captain Shantha Rangaswamy beloved taking part in in Bengaluru and Kolkata, however feels taking matches to tier-2 cities needs to be checked out as ‘progress’. “We need to take cricket to tier-2 cities. It’s a progress, though it may not look like that. We need to reach to the roots and widen our base. Bengaluru is supposed to be the best centre out of the four but reportedly the venue has lost the opportunity to host the World Cup games due to the stampede. It’s a shame, a personal loss. It would have helped boost women’s cricket in Karnataka which is at its lowest ebb,” she stated.

Former India batter Anjum Chopra identified that quite a bit of thought will need to have gone into deciding the venues. “India has great cricket infrastructure. We have more than 30 international stadiums. I am sure before picking the venues there was a thought on how women’s cricket needs to be popularised and taken to different cities. I don’t think any venue is a poor venue. The men’s team will also be playing at that time and domestic cricket will also be on,” she defined. When India final hosted a ladies’s flagship occasion, the 2016 T20 World Cup, it leveraged eight premier venues, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Dharamshala, Mohali, Bengaluru and Nagpur, drawing sturdy crowds and a spotlight. By prioritising rising areas this time, probably the purpose is to broaden the footprint, fostering progress past metro hubs. But solely time will inform if it could possibly stay as much as its formidable imaginative and prescient.