The Road to a Level Playing Field

The whole country seemed to have held its breath until the very last moment when the final wicket fell. All those years of waiting, hard work and determination had finally paid off. The players ran towards each other crying, laughing, and celebrating. Indian women lifted the World Cup for the very first time as the crowd rejoiced.

The celebration was about cricket, but it showed what women’s sport can become when talent meets the right policies. When we think about women’s sport we tend to think about the sportsperson. We think about the batter, or the runner, or the goalkeeper or the finish line. But behind every woman athlete is a system. A system of officials, coaches, facilities, funding and public policy that actually builds champions.

We can understand this system in a rather interesting way by comparing India and Australia. The Australian Sports Commission keeps a track of not only the performance but the coaching, participation, leadership, and governance. Its data reports women making up 42% of the sport and recreation administrators, 44% of team managers, 36% of coaches and 39% of officials. This data is very important because it changes how we understand the success of a sport. In Australia, women are not just playing, but they are involved in running and building the sporting system. 

India has also started looking beyond the elite sportspersons. We have programs like Khelo India and the Achieving Sports Milestone by Inspiring Women Through Action (ASMITA) leagues, through which the government is investing more in women’s sports and grassroots talent identification. In 2024-25, more than 53,000 women sportpersons participated in 550 ASMITA leagues across 27 sports. These figures show us that India is headed in the right direction, but we still need to build this participation into an entire ecosystem.

Getting girls to play is half the game

It is rather easy to find girls who begin playing at a young age but they seem to disappear at adolescence. Research in Australia shows that at adolescence, girls’ participation in sport declines, with age 15 identified as a peak point for dropping out. Meanwhile girl athletes and coaches in New Delhi are affected by the social and body-image pressures that affect girls’ experiences of sport. The real challenge is not simply getting girls to play, but ensuring they have support and opportunity to continue. Does this young girl have a good coach? Is there a pathway to go from local competition to national levels? Can she convince herself and others that this is a career?

Australia’s system has given women a visible pathway to pursue sports. Women’s competitions have been established across several sports, including cricket through the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), football through the AFL Women’s (AFLW) competition, and netball through Suncorp Super Netball. These competitions are giving young girls the opportunity to see sports as a realistic career.

India is starting to develop these pathways too. The Women’s Premier League (WPL) has led to more visibility and commercialization of women’s cricket. Khelo India and ASMITA on the other hand are trying to create pathways from the grassroot levels. These individual initiatives are useful. But connecting these initiatives is important so that the sportsperson doesn't fall through the gaps. 

The team behind the sportsperson

Maybe the most important measure of gender equality in sport is not who is playing, but who makes the decisions. 

Australia has taken a direct step towards this. Its National Gender Equity in Sports Governance Policy aims for the sporting organisations to reach 50% women and/or gender-diverse representation among board directors, chairs/deputy chairs and specified committees by July 2027.  This is rather significant because this policy makes gender equality something that can be measured and monitored rather than simply encouraging. 

India builds its own path

The Indian sports policy is tackling something different from Australia. India has a big population and great geographical diversity, which means that the scale of the programs itself is a big question. 

The ASMITA is a good example. As it continues to expand, the programme has brought sports across multiple sectors across the country, to girls who may have never gotten the chance to enter the elite system. The challenge for us is to ensure that the girl who enters through ASMITA can progress through better coaching, financial support, stronger competition and a career pathway. 

What can we learn from Australia?

Australia offers a great lesson in institutionalising gender equality. Collecting data, setting targets and increasing the number of women in leadership roles, can make the sporting ecosystem more equal. But Australia still has a significant gap in the elite sportspersons and leadership. And India is still working on connecting and expanding grassroot opportunities with leadership pathways. Both the countries have a long way to go. The comparison lies in what works and why.

The World Cup win was a historic moment for Indian women’s sport. But perhaps the greatest importance lies just beyond the trophy. If there is a girl out there, who believes she can play cricket, become a professional sportsperson or one day become a coach, then this win created a pathway for us to build an equal sporting system.

The success of women’s sports does not lie in that final moment. It is built much earlier, on the field, in the classroom, in the locker room and around the policy table. The real measure of our progress should not be about how many champions we produce, but about how many girls we give the opportunity to become one.