Mithali Raj snaps as she doesn't want women's team to be compared with the men's team.

Indian Women’s cricket team is in England right now preparing for the awaited Women’s Cricket World Cup. The Indian team had to go through a qualification tournament to qualify for the same and won the finals in a dramatic fashion. However, we have seen women’s cricket not getting much focus compared to the men’s cricket in India.

The Indian team has been developing over the years and it is in the best shape compared to the previous years. The Indian captain Mithali Raj was talking to the journalists at the media roundtable and talked about various aspects of the game. She also talked about male coaches and how the women’s team is different from the men’s team.

When asked who her favourite cricketer from the men’s team was she kind of snapped and said, “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is? I have always been asked who’s your favourite cricketer but you should ask them who their favourite female cricketer is.”

Let us have a look at some other topics she touched upon.

On the coach

Mithali Raj was conclusive in her answers as she was questioned about the coach and the support staff. She admitted that the women’s cricket needs to fetch some traits from the men’s cricket. Earlier Tushar Arothe took over the position of the coach from Purnima Rau and the Indian captain admits that the team has improved since.

She said that having a taskmaster as a coach helps girls get enough training be ready for the fight. It is important to push the levels of the players and be at their best when it matters. She sounded supportive of the coaching methods of their head coach, unlike the men’s team.

She said, “I believe that if you are representing your country, your country should get the best of the best. It’s nothing to do with women coaches [who] don’t have the ability, they do. but if you really want to push the team to the highest level, you need to have somebody who is a tough taskmaster so that the girls really put in the intensity in their training sessions and they carry that into the main tournaments.”

On the men’s team

Mithali feels that the Indian men’s team sets the bar and they always try to get there. She admitted to following men’s cricket and believes that women’s cricket will be up there at some point in the future. She also said that popularity wise they are not as televised or talked upon team in India and their counterparts share the majority of it.

Raj said, “There’s a lot of difference because we are not a regular on television. Now the BCCI has made an effort that the last two home series have been televised and social media has improved a lot of it but there is a still a lot of catch-up to do in terms of recognition.

“Men’s cricket sets the bar. We are always trying to reach where they set the standard. All of us follow men’s cricket because we want at some point that women’s cricket would be up there. All of us at some point have been coached by a male cricketer. I strongly believe that they get a lot of intensity into the training sessions. They are very hard taskmasters.” She added.