Sportstar Goa conclave | Shikha says GWPL is good, but bats for financial security

Shikha Pandey discusses the impact of the Women's Premier League and the need for more age-group tournaments in Goa.

India fast bowler Shikha Pandey said that the Women’s Premier League (WPL) and the introduction of more age-group tournaments have enabled women to take up the sport in the State during a discussion on cricket’s future with former Goa captain Swapnil Asnodkar and Vipul Phadke, president, Goa Cricket Association (GCA).

Shikha, who plays for the State cricket team, hailed the impact of the Goa Women’s Premier League last year but believes much remains to be done.

“The Goa Women’s Premier League last year was one of its kind. Before that, 2016 was the last time we played a tournament of that sort. When you have a cricketer from Goa who is consistently in the national set-up, be it an NCA camp, or Under-23 or Emerging India camp, you gather a lot of information and standards that are to be set. The player I am today is because of the summer camps we had under Nitin [Vernekar] sir. Purnima Rao, a former India cricketer, would take our summer camps. The learnings from summer camps were huge. That set the tone for players to develop.

“For women cricketers, it is slightly difficult because, till today, the only employment-giving organisation to women cricketers in India is Railways. Male cricketers make good money, but women cricketers, who do not get into a WPL team, for them to continue playing cricket with financial security is very important,” Shikha said, calling for a contract-based pay system for cricketers at the domestic level.

Phadke referred to Goa’s miserable fortunes in the Ranji Trophy ecosystem.

“It is quite unfortunate that we haven’t been able to win the Ranji Trophy for almost 45 years. The GCA has also failed on some aspects. The players don’t have the right attitude. The hunger is missing in many players now. During Swapnil’s time, the players were a bit more dedicated. Their final aim shouldn’t be just playing the Ranji Trophy, but eventually playing for India. That is how they can push the bar. GCA has failed to produce young talent from the grassroots. We need to work at the U-14 and U-16 levels. We have started centres for junior boys, and we plan to expand this, decentralise the whole system, and take cricket to the villages of Goa.”

“We cannot have a lot of three or four-day matches due to constraints in Goa. We already have a lot of other matches in other formats. We have the school u-14 and u-16 matches for boys and girls. We have 107 clubs that play matches against each other. Due to the lack of grounds and the constraints of the weather, we can hardly have one tournament — the three-day premier league. If we have more number of grounds, then can we work on that,” added.