Shedding the spotlight on Bahrain’s international cricket accolade – a world record by women.

The Bahrain women’s cricket team broke a series of international records at the 2022 GCC Women’s Gulf Cup, a women’s T20I (WT20I) cricket tournament, which was played at the Al Amerat Cricket Ground in Oman. It was a proud moment for team Bahrain to set the highest total ever recorded in a WT20I with a mammoth score of 318 runs for the loss of one, that too without any sixes. Bahrain beat Saudi Arabia by a massive margin of 269 runs. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia played their first official WT20I matches during this tournament.

Leading the team to victory was Deepika Rasangika who hit the captain’s knock, scoring a whopping 161 runs off just 66 balls in the seventh match of the championship. At 161 not out, Deepika is also the first woman to register a 150-plus score in this format of the game, shattering the previous score of 148 by Australian cricketer, Alyssa Healy, against Sri Lanka in 2019. Further, team Bahrain broke the record for the highest run rate in an innings with an NRR (net run rate) of 15.9.

According to social media, more often than not we find sportswomen not being taken seriously. Especially those that play male-dominated sports like cricket – a gentleman’s game. Remember the incident where Mithali Raj, Captain of the Indian Women’s Cricket team was asked at a media round table who her favourite male player is? She slammed the journalist with the counter question: “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?” Her response sparked a series of debates on whether it’s high time that women in sport are treated equally as their male counterparts. Proving the naysayers wrong, Deepika, like Mithali and many others, have set the record straight. And kudos to the Bahrain Cricket Federation (BCF) and the Kingdom of Bahrain for encouraging women athletes and sportspersons!

Speaking on the victory, Hatim Dadabhai, Bahrain Cricket Federation (BFC) President said: “In 2021, the BCF embarked on a journey to drive women’s empowerment through cricket by building a robust community of women cricketers. Promotional drives were implemented across the Kingdom in schools, universities, sports and social clubs, expat communities, professional associations, residential compounds and corporates to identify talented women cricketers, ranging from school girls and college students to mums, working women and others. Free training was then provided to all the talented candidates after which the women’s league was established. It served as a foundation to create Bahrain’s women’s national team.” ✤

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