{"id":1178,"date":"2016-05-25T01:05:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T01:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:00:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:00:42","slug":"mithali-raj-indian-women-cricket-punam-raut-virat-kohli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1178","title":{"rendered":"The Anonymous Life of a Woman Sports Star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

O<\/span><\/p><\/div>

nce again, an Indian player holds the top ranking while setting pioneering records in cricket. Proving that cricket isn\u2019t just a \u201cball\u201d game, Mithali Raj<\/a>, Indian women\u2019s team skipper and veteran batswoman, became the first player to cross the 6,000-run mark in ODI matches. Mithali Raj was in fine form; the media and Twitter showered her with adulation worthy of Caesar\u2019s triumphs. Some likened her to a superhero, and others wrote lengthy paeans to her skill and brilliance. For a minute, everything seemed perfect, and it appeared as if it was finally time for the Indian women\u2019s team to get their long overdue share of the spotlight.\n\nAnd then, Virat Kohli joined the conversation<\/a>.\n\nMithali\u2019s counterpart in the men\u2019s team lined up to congratulate the women\u2019s captain on her achievement, with a photo of her punching through cover. Except, the sportswoman in the picture wasn\u2019t Mithali Raj; it was prolific batswoman Punam Raut. (Imagine confusing Kohli for Rohit Sharma!)\n\nThe post was obviously taken down, but in its brief life on social media, it became a metaphor of our attitude toward woman athletes. Virat Kohli could step out of his house and it would make news \u2013 but women cricketers and sportswomen exist on the peripheries of our testosterone-addled vision, having to work 20 times harder to really be catapulted into our line of sight. When they occasionally break through \u2013 like Dipa Karmakar or PV Sindhu \u2013 it is on the back of achievements that are that much more exceptional. And when the excitement around that dies down, it\u2019s back to status quo, back to being blindsided.\n\nBut why mope about this when we\u2019re quite happy to throw around phrases that undermine any female participation in sport?\n\n\u201cYou throw like a girl!\u201d\n\n\u201cLeave it to the big boys.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t send a woman to do a man\u2019s job.\u201d\n\n

If you\u2019re a woman sports star, the only thing that you can be assured of is that everything except your performance will draw attention.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nWomen are oddities and anomalies; at best, out-of-place curiosities that elicit more scepticism than respect. There\u2019s a reason Kohli and his social media team didn\u2019t spot their mistake before posting \u2013 not many in the country could place a member of the women\u2019s team in a crowd.\n\nBut there\u2019s a cold comfort in knowing that this lack of recognition isn\u2019t unique to Indian women\u2019s cricket. The Australian women\u2019s team is a favourite in the ongoing World Cup, and features some of the world\u2019s best players like Meg Lanning, but they recently received a wave of undeserved attention<\/a>.\n\nA video<\/a> of a bevy of beauties disembarking from a bus while dressed to the nines began to circulate and someone on the internet declared that the fleet of models on the bus was the Australian cricket team arriving in London for the international tournament. The rest of the web rode that all the way to alt-fact heaven. In fact, the video did not feature a single member of the Aussie team, and you\u2019d learn that only by trawling the bowels<\/a> of Reddit. A squad of 11 accomplished, talented women were casually misrepresented without a single thought, and hardly anybody noticed.\n\nIf you\u2019re a woman sports star, the only thing that you can be assured of is that everything except your performance will draw attention. There was much ado about Mithali Raj reading a book<\/a> before she went out there to bat and set some record. Maria Sharapova is consistently counted among the best tennis players on the pro circuit, but throughout her career, she\u2019s faced ridicule<\/a> for the grunts and shrieks of exertion she emits on the court. Another gifted tennis star, Amelie Mauresmo, endured taunts<\/a> and jibes about her masculine appearance and homosexuality throughout her playing days, until the day she gave her haters the middle finger and retired as World No 1.\n\n\"Mithali\n

\n

Mithali Raj, Captain of India bats during the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 match between Australia and India at The County Ground on July 12, 2017 in Bristol, England. <\/p>\n

Harry Trump-IDI \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\nIn the world of competitive sports, female athletes are women first. Just think about the patronising way most official sports governing bodies tweak the rules for the women\u2019s version of the game. This World Cup has been advertised as \u201cbigger and better encouragement for the growth of women\u2019s cricket over the years\u201d by the ICC and even though bifurcating the men\u2019s and women\u2019s World Cup into separate calendar events is idealistic, the administration\u2019s attitude does sound woefully patronising. In cricket, Test matches last four days. In tennis, games are decided in three sets, not five. In basketball, the three-point line for women is closer to the basket than it is for the men.\n\nSomeone please build a time machine so that the gentlemen who formulated these rules can visit us in 2017 and see Serena Williams win the Australian Open while in the first trimester of her pregnancy<\/a>. Show them Mithali Raj scoring seven 50s on the trot<\/a> and ask them if they think she can\u2019t play a five-day Test match. As veteran sports writer Sharda Ugra wrote<\/a>, \u201cEvery woman athlete in India emerges a conquistadora of her personal empire created out of both network and minefield of family, neighbourhood, community, and peer group. She stands on the shoulders of goddesses who preceded her and in my generation the lineage has stretched from Usha to Anju, Aparna, Anjali, Suma, Sania, Saina, Mithali, Rani, Mary, Sindhu, Geeta, Sakshi, Dipa.\u201d\n\nFor these women have put in a Herculean effort \u2013 not merely for themselves but for the women who will fill up the ranks in the generations to come. Is it really that difficult to offer them a spot of personal glory, alongside our pantheon of Sachin Tendulkars and Vijender Singhs?\n\nUntil then, can someone please show Kohli\u2019s handlers what Mithali actually looks like?\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virat Kohli congratulated Mithali Raj by posting a picture of Punam Raut. In its brief life on social media, the post became a metaphor of our attitude toward woman athletes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[394],"tags":[1986,1987,1988,880,1989],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-indian-womens-cricket","tag-mithali-raj","tag-punam-raut","tag-virat-kohli","tag-women-athletes"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Anonymous Life of a Woman Sports Star<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Virat Kohli congratulated Mithali Raj by posting a picture of Punam Raut. 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