Over the past 10 days, India's women cricketers have done what elite teams are expected to do and what, for years, they have had to do more than most: win convincingly, win repeatedly, and win while carrying the burden of proving their relevance. In Dubai, they captured their eighth Asia Cup title. In Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, they defended their Asian Games gold medal. On the field, the results were emphatic. Off it, the conversation once again drifted toward politics, symbolism and the unequal way Indian cricket continues to be narrated.
The Asia Cup final against defending champions Sri Lanka was a commanding statement. Deepti Sharma ended the tournament with 14 wickets, the most by any bowler in the competition, underlining her growing stature as one of India's most dependable all-round performers. Smriti Mandhana, meanwhile, moved past Mithali Raj to become India's leading run-scorer in international cricket and also overtook Australia's Meg Lanning for the most centuries in women's international cricket. In almost any other sporting context, those milestones would have dominated the headlines.
Instead, much of the attention was consumed by what happened after the final wicket. The broadcasters, aware of the drama and commercial value of uncertainty, lingered on the VIP stand as the match ended. The Asian Cricket Council chairman, Mohsin Naqvi, who is also Pakistan's Interior Minister and the Pakistan Cricket Board's chief, eventually appeared on camera and was shown speaking with BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia. The moment became the focal point of the broadcast, eclipsing the sporting achievement that had just been secured.
That imbalance is not new. Women's cricket in India has long had to fight for legitimacy in a system that has historically privileged the men's game. The women have repeatedly pressed for pay parity, have often been denied access to prime venues, and have routinely been given second billing by broadcasters and administrators. Yet the recent discourse around the women's team has increasingly mirrored the treatment of the men's side, especially when India and Pakistan are involved. The result is a strange flattening of the two teams' very different journeys, as if the political theatre surrounding men's cricket has simply been inherited wholesale by the women.
The roots of that inheritance lie in the men's Asia Cup campaign in 2025, months after the deadly terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam and the brief military skirmish that followed between India and Pakistan. As public pressure mounted for a boycott of the fixture against Pakistan, India captain Suryakumar Yadav responded by refusing to shake hands. For many supporters, it was a symbolic gesture. For others, it was a poor substitute for the calls to abandon the match altogether.
The final against Pakistan produced another charged scene. India's players were seen celebrating with an imaginary trophy after Naqvi did not present the actual one, and the episode was widely interpreted as a deliberate snub. Prime Minister Narendra Modi later described the victory as "Operation Sindoor on the games field," further collapsing the boundary between sporting triumph and political messaging.
When the women's team later prepared for the ODI World Cup, they were already being asked about a handshake issue before they had even faced Pakistan. Deepti Sharma's response then was pointed in its restraint: "We are not focusing on the Asia Cup at the moment... our focus is on this series." But once India met Pakistan, the women too did not shake hands with their opponents.
A year later, the same script appears to be repeating itself, only with different protagonists. The women's team has delivered results of the highest order, but the framing around those results remains inseparable from the politics of India-Pakistan cricket. Their victories deserve to be remembered first for what they are: elite sporting achievements. Yet the way they are received suggests that in Indian cricket, even women's success is still being asked to carry a political weight it did not choose.