I have always loved sports. Not for the medals, but for what they do to you. As a child, I spent more evenings on grounds than at the study table. On athletics days I learned how to start and still push when the pain begins. Cricket, though, was different. It was a family ritual with my father and brother invested, while I absorbed and learned from the screen and their discussions.

Somewhere along the way the game changed for me. The shimmer and boom of the IPL made cricket feel less like a sport and more like a marketplace which did not sit well with me. I drifted away. But last night, after a long time, something historic pulled me back. I watched. I could not look away.

India beat South Africa by 52 runs to win the Women’s Cricket World Cup in Navi Mumbai. It was a victory driven by Shafali Verma’s blazing 87 and a match-defining all-round performance from Deepti Sharma. This is India’s first Women’s World Cup title, and the stadium, the broadcasters, the nation felt it.

Numbers matter here because the attention this tournament drew does not fit the old script. The International Cricket Council and broadcasters reported record viewership and watch-time, with growth in unique viewers and landmark streaming for marquee fixtures. The India–Pakistan women’s match alone broke previous records, and that means the “women’s game” label is no longer a niche.

But this isn’t the whole story. Behind this moment is decades of unseen labour. Women cricketers in India once travelled in un-reserved train coaches, carried their own bedding, shared bats, slept on floors in dormitories with four toilets for twenty players. One report says, “There was no money, no sponsors … daal served in a plastic vessel … we paid our own fare.” These were not occasional setbacks. They were the standard, a given.

Even in those conditions, a handful of players kept showing up, driven less by promise and more by pure love for the game. Mithali Raj and her peers built excellence in an ecosystem that offered far less – fewer contracts, fewer matches, fewer endorsements. Their dedication exposed talent and stubbornly highlighted the gap between ability and opportunity.

And yet, momentum is not the same as completion. There have been steps forward, including moves to equalise match fees, but contract structures, annual retainers and systemic investment still show a gap. When the announcement of equal pay first came, there were many who questioned it. “But have they even won anything yet?” they asked. The irony being, men were never asked to earn equality through trophies. Women had to justify fairness before even getting the chance to prove themselves.

Match-day parity is only one part of a much larger equation. To translate last night’s joy into durable change we need predictable sponsorship, deeper grassroots investment, robust domestic calendars, and media commitments that treat women’s sport as prime-time content year-round, not only in moments of glory.

Why does that matter beyond balance sheets? Because attention begets resources, which beget infrastructure, which beget continuity. When networks, brands, federations and parents stop asking whether a sport is “suitable” for girls and start asking which academy is best, the ecosystem shifts. Small girls in small towns begin to see themselves in live images on television. Parents begin to choose fields over late-night lectures. Sponsors begin to underwrite seasons, not just tournaments. That chain can turn a brilliant generation into a sustainable movement.

Because what happened last night is bigger than a trophy. It’s cultural repair. For decades, women in sport have been told they’re lucky to be allowed to play, as though permission were a prize. This win turns that narrative on its head. It says: we were never lucky, we were ready.

This is historic in ways we’ll realise slowly. It will shift what families discuss at dinner, how schools prioritise playgrounds, how brands imagine ambassadors. For young girls, it isn’t just a celebration, it’s a mirror. For men, it’s a reckoning – proof that brilliance was never gendered.

Sport is a mirror, yes, but it is also a door. And last night that door swung open and how!

When men play, they fight opponents.
When women play, they fight opponents, expectations, bias, ridicule, and invisibility, all at once.
So when they win big, it’s not just a result. It’s a story to be told and re-told over the generations. It’s a revolution. It’s vindication.

Because this victory carries the grit of so many who kept at it, who rose despite all odds, who found space where none existed. They were told ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen’, and I am glad they cooked the world and brought home the cup.

As cheers ripple into every home across India, one thing stands true. We are no longer defending women’s sport, hopefully. We are simply watching it, loving it, celebrating it. And that, in itself, is history.

Cheers to the unstoppable women everywhere.
May we know them.
May we be them.
May we raise them.