NAVI MUMBAI: As the embers of the beautiful night melted in the dawn, Indiawomen woke up to a new reality – the World Champions. Harmanpreet Kaur and her team must have realized life will no longer be the same again.
With last night’s extraordinary viewership numbers (running above 30 crore) and the win turning into the most-discussed topic over the last 24 hours, the fortunes have changed.
The team bagged $4.48 million (Rs 40 crore) as prize money. Add to that the Rs 51 crore the Indian cricket board (BCCI) announced. Close to Rs 100 crore for the team, an amount that eclipses any figure the team received since they started playing in World Cups 50 years ago. The World Cup prize-money had seen a nine-fold increase from the runner-up $500,000 they got in 2020 at the MCG.
The brand of women’s cricket has been steadily growing and from Sunday night, leading sports apparel companies to food delivery apps started using stars’ faces to promote their brands. Smriti Mandhana has been the most recognised face and the top earner. Harmanpreet is close behind.
The likes of Pratika Rawal, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma could be the new faces soon. In terms of cricket, the BCCI is planning to usher in changes. “Whateverchanges we have seen after 1983 in men’s cricket, we hope and expect the samething to happen now,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia told this daily.
