: From WCAI to WPL, 50-year journey of Indian womens cricket #IndiaNEWS #Sports <br>Womens cricket in India owes its birth to the Womens Cricket Association of India (WCAI), whose founder-cum-secretary

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From WCAI to WPL, 50-year journey of Indian womens cricket #IndiaNEWS #Sports
<br>Womens cricket in India owes its birth to the Womens Cricket Association of India (WCAI), whose founder-cum-secretary Mahendra Kumar Sharma got it registered under the Societies Act of Lucknow in 1973. WCAIs first President was Premala Chavan, late former Congress MP and mother of Prithviraj Chavan, ex-Maharashtra Chief Minister.
In the same year, the WCAI also received the International Womens Cricket Councils (IWCC) membership as well. A womens inter-state national tournament began in 1973 with three teams Mumbai, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
The second edition was held in Varanasi at the end of the year, and by then the tournament expanded to eight teams. By the time the third championship was held in Calcutta, the number of teams had gone up to 14. Post that, all states took part in the national tournament.
In 1974, an inter-zonal limited-over tournament named Rani Jhansi Trophy was held in Kanpur.
In 1975, an inter-university tournament was held at Rajkot, with the trophy named after Gunamathi Nayudu, the wife of Indias first mens team captain, C. K. Nayudu. It also paved the way for sub-junior and junior tournaments for the U-15 and U-19 players.
The winners of each zone then featured in the Indira Priyadarshini Trophy and the winners of the nationals played against the Rest of India team for the Raus Cup. There were camps which were held in partnership with the National Institute of Sports in Patiala, where the legendary Lala Amarnath would guide the female cricketers.
The first-ever bilateral womens cricket series organised by the WCAI was played in India in 1975 when the Australia U-25 team toured the country to play a three-Test series in Pune, Delhi and Calcutta.
India fielded three captains for each Test Ujwala Nikam, Sudha Shah and Sreerupa Bose. A little later after the Australian series came New Zealand for five three-day matches in Calcutta, New Delhi, Lucknow, Pune and Bangalore.
But the big moment for the India womens team came when they played their first-ever Test against the West Indies in 1976 in Bangalore, before scripting their first international win in the Moin-ul-Haq stadium in Patna.
WCAI oversaw India hosting their first-ever Womens ODI World Cup in 1978. This was a stupendous achievement considering that it was a time when the governing body largely relied on donations from individuals and the government.
It would go on to host the 1997 Womens ODI World Cup too, where 11 teams participated and Australia beat England in the final in front of nearly 80,000 fans at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
The problem in arranging funds would become a constant issue for WCAI once Sharma resigned from the WCAI in 1978.

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