Come, cheer our ladies: Harsha Bhogle backs Indra Nooyi's invite to Women’s T20 WC next year

Earlier this year, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi urged fans to make the trip to watch the Indian women’s team play.

A few months ago, Indra Nooyi, former PepsiCo chief and current ICC independent director, called on all cricket fans to fill the stadium for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup final next year.

"If you're not here at the MCG on 8th March 2020, watching the Women's Final, you're missing something incredibly special because it's going to be a major turning point for women's sport," ICC quoted Nooyi, as saying.



That invitation was echoed recently by cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle. Speaking at a Tourism Australia campaign launch, Bhogle encouraged fans to make the trip ‘down under’ to watch the team play. “I’d love to see India play that final. We don’t know if that’ll happen but if it does, it’ll spark off so many more girls playing cricket.”

According to Bhogle, the main draw of the tournament will be the pure talent found in the Indian women’s cricket team.

A star line-up
From Smriti Mandhana to Jemimah Rodrigues to Mithali Raj (who Bhogle considers a rockstar), Bhogle was quick to praise some of his favourite players and reveal why watching them next year would be a treat.

“Harmanpreet Kaur is now Hammer-preet Kaur. And she makes a mockery of those boundary lines, I promise you. Sometimes they bring the boundary walls in for the women’s game and it’s almost as if she’s saying put them back because it doesn’t matter where the boundary ropes are, I’m still going to clear them.”

“And if some of you haven’t seen Smriti Mandhana drive through the offside, it’s like watching Sourav Ganguly drive through the offside and I promise you Smriti Mandhana does not lose an inch in comparison. She’s that elegant. She now hits straight over long on as well like Sourav used to.”

A spin treat
“Our girls are some of the best spin bowlers in the world. They bowl spin like the old spinners used to…It spins in the air and it drops. Deepti Sharma is a fantastic all-rounder, Ekta Bisht is a good spinner, Poonam Yadav… We’re seeing a lot of extraordinary talent coming through,” he said.

Back to basics
Another treat for cricket fans, according to Bhogle, is the way the women play itself. “They have the old traditional skills that the game used to have so it’s wonderful to watch.”

“You love watching Serena Williams play? You’ll love watching Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur and Mithali Raj over the others.”