Women's cricket headed for 'stratosphere' in India after long-awaited first World Cup victory

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Captain Harmanpreet Kaur's trophy-winning catch on Sunday ended a decades-long wait by India for Women's Cricket World Cup glory.

It may also have changed the face of women's cricket.

India has long been a global power in the men's game but had to wait until now for the women to finally become world champions.

And it wasn't for a lack of trying.

India made its World Cup debut as host in 1978 and placed fourth out of four teams. It hosted again in 1997 and reached its first semifinals, and lost the finals in 2005 to Australia and in 2017 to England.

Kaur was on the 2017 team and her scintillating 171 not out (from 115 balls) against defending champion Australia — the fourth highest Women's World Cup score — made the cricket world take more notice of India. The loss to England in the final by a mere nine runs fueled an increased desire in the country to take that final step.

“Every time we lost, we went home heartbroken and stayed quiet for a few days," Kaur said on Sunday. "When we returned, we said we have to start again from ball one. It was heartbreaking because we played so many World Cups, reaching finals, semifinals and sometimes not even that far. We were always thinking, when will we break this?”

Now the new question is: Where to from here?

“The women’s game was already rising in India,” said Nasser Hussain, the former England men's captain and commentator. “They needed this title to put a seal on it and this should take the game to the stratosphere here.”

The triumph comes after a concerted effort in India to get over the hump.

At the last World Cup in 2022, India failed to even make it out of the group stage, a debacle that rankled officials at home and led to increased urgency to boost the women's game.

The Women's Premier League, an idea that had long seemed a pipe dream, was launched the next year. Three seasons later, top names who emerged from the Twenty20 league were key to India's victory. Medium-pacer Kranti Goud (nine wickets in eight matches) and left-arm spinner Shree Charani (14 wickets in nine matches) made their international debuts earlier in 2025.

It could be just the start.

India men's great Sachin Tendulkar compared the elation from Sunday's win to that in 1983 when India won the men's World Cup for the first time.

“1983 inspired an entire generation to dream big and chase those dreams," Tendulkar wrote on X. “Today, our women’s cricket team has done something truly special. They have inspired countless young girls across the country to pick up a bat and ball, take the field and believe that they too can lift that trophy one day.”

India's latest champions paid tribute to women who paved the way for them.

After collecting their winners' medals on Sunday night and posing for the official team photos long after midnight local time, the women passed the trophy to former India players in attendance. They included Jhulan Goswami, who took 43 wickets in five World Cups and was part of the team that lost the 2017 final.

Goswami was sure the wait for the next trophy will be a lot shorter.

“This self-belief and the mindset to develop individually as players will forge them stronger as a team,” Goswami said. “This will set a benchmark for future Indian teams to come back even in tough situations because they will know how to do it.”

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