Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Jhulan Goswami wins ICC Women's player of the year award 2007

Jhulan at the ICC awards function.

Recently women's cricket in India received a huge boost when our very own Jhulan Goswami, fast bowler, was awarded ICC women's player of the year 2007 - her male counterpart being Australian skipper Ricky Ponting. She was the only Indian nomination, none of our men in blue were shortlisted. This was just the second year of this award for women's cricket, the first one received by Australian karen Rolton.

Jhulan against New Zealand.

Goswami is from Bengal and only 23 years old. To receive such a prestigious award at such a young age is quite an achievement and there is much more yet to come from her. I have never seen her play (thanks to the pathetic television coverage of women's cricket ) but one look at her statistics can paint us a fair picture. In the bowling department her economy rates are 2.00 & 3.13 for Test matches & ODIs respectively. Her batting statistics suggest that she can come handy with the bat too. For the entire statistics u can refer to cricinfo. She is currently the fastest playing female bowler in the world, her predecessor retiring recently.

Being such a talented player she sure deserves some accolades. But sadly that's the state of women's cricket. Considering the fact that BCCI controls the women's cricket too & with Yuvi getting 1 Cr for his laudable performance, Jhulan surely should receive some moolah. I'm not comparing women's cricket with that of men but great performers should be rewarded. It is necessary to acknowledge their achievements to motivate them to perform better. Currently
India ranks 2nd in ICC international women's cricket ranking just behind Australia & with performers like Jhulan we sure can look forward to being on the top. Kudos to Goswami!