But I could care less about the gap at the top. And here’s why:

Firstly, comparisons between male and female cricket turn me off, whether about the speed of the bowlers or the par scores. Women’s and men’s cricket are now played with very divergent rules; for instance, the batting power play has been preserved in women’s ODI cricket, but abolished in men’s.

In every respect, we need to stop looking at women’s cricket through the lens of the men’s game, and appreciate it as its own sport.

Secondly, rather than fume about the difference of six crore and fifty lakhs between the retainers of Virat Kohli and Mithali Raj, it’s worth plotting a graph of how the men’s salaries rose to the point they have, and considering how the women’s team can also reach that level.

A Lesson to be Learned

Fume as we might about gender equality, it doesn’t happen overnight; true equality is an organic and multi-layered process, and if we want it to be anything more than tokenism, we must be patient.

The two teams need to be looked at as products, where market forces decide the value more than anything. The men’s team had its hockey-stick curve moment 35 years ago, when India stormed Lord’s in 1983. Their brand value has been slow cooked over three decades, as has the system. A huge base and a robust junior cricket system has helped them now threaten to be No 1 in all formats, and they would have gotten here even earlier if the sport was run more professionally.

Contrarily, India women have only just had their OMG moment, coming within 10 runs of that same Lord’s balcony last year. Like with the men, a more committed administration would have seen that happen much earlier; the early apathy towards women’s cricket remains one of the unpardonable sins of previous BCCI regimes. But the spark has finally come, and the graph is rising once more. To expect it to numerically match one that has had a 30-year headstart is illogical.