Mahendra Kumar Sharma, who led the fight in India for women's cricket, passed suddenly at the age of 75 after a protracted illness.
Five decades ago, when Sharma rode in an autorickshaw through the streets of Lucknow, he made the aforementioned announcement into a microphone. “Kanyaon ki cricket hogi, zaroor aayiye” (There will be a cricket match by girls, do come) Those were the infancy of Indian women's cricket.
In March 2021, no such notification was made, but despite the rise in COVID-19 cases, a great audience attended the second T20I match between South Africa and India at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Stadium. The women's game has come a long way, for sure.
It was an odd coincidence that professional women's cricket made its way back to the historic city fifty years after those games were played on the Queen's Anglo Sanskrit College's rather modest field, which was founded in 1888.
Sharma came up with the idea for the competition because she wanted to establish an organisation for women's cricket in India. The first tests for that were the weekend games.
About 200 interested individuals had attended the game after hearing Sharma's promotional campaign on the autorickshaw, mostly to see if the girls played in skirts! The news was heard by Shubhankar Mukherjee, a cricket-playing college student at the time.
Sharma changed him into the scorer. Mukherjee informed over the phone that she was forced to perform the scoring because Sharma's hired scorer failed to arrive on time. The scorer arrived at 11 o'clock despite being requested to be at 10 o'clock.
Sharma, however, understood the value of time and worked hard to establish an organisation to promote women's cricket.
Thus, in 1973, the Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI) was founded.
Shubhangi Kulkarni, a former all-rounder for India, who served as the WCAI's secretary until it amalgamated with the BCCI in 2006, claimed that "without Sharma, women's cricket would not have taken off the way it did in India."
He promoted cricketers like Diana Edulji, Shanta Rangaswamy, and Sudha Shah to the general audience by organising cricket events.
Recognition is required
Sharma's pioneering contribution for women's cricket is scarcely recognised or appreciated today.
Former Indian Railways executive and former assistant manager of the Indian women's team Mukherjee said, "He even sold a property of his in Lucknow to promote the game."
