When silly points need extra cover

Ah the Cricket World Cup! Where men gather in raucous crowds to relive their collective boyhoods, where the phrase bowling a maiden over will elicit approving sniggers from the locker room and where male chauvinism certainly needs no extra cover.

The gorgeous Mandira Bedi was in regulation noodle straps during World Cup coverage. Want to crash the boys club on cricket commentary? Better show some flesh, baby! Female sports anchors across sports channels are in any case always in clothes designed to show off magnificent décolletages. Gender imaging has been hit for a six when it comes to cricket as mass entertainment.

BCCI recently decreed that wives and girlfriends of cricketers could not accompany their partners on tours. After all, when the big powerful male is fighting for his country’s honour, how can he be distracted by frivolous temptress Eve, the original reason for Adam’s fall from paradise? At IPL female cheerleaders obligingly kick up their heels as warriors on the field battle for victory, female bare flesh the necessary accessory of male sport. The poster girls of women’s sport – Sania Mirza and Saina Nehwal – show that tennis and badminton offer much more of a level playing field for women where female sporting talent is celebrated.

Does anyone care about women’s cricket? Do any of the women gushing over M S Dhoni or Rohit Sharma bother to follow the careers of women cricketers or spare a thought for the valiant Diana Eduljee when she pleads for sponsor support for women’s cricket? Ladies, let’s face it, cricket is for the men, by the men and of the men. An exclusive male zone where women are barely welcome and if they want to participate they must transform themselves into eternally giggling, swooning fangirls or sex symbols for TRPs. During IPL TV coverage female anchors are forced to be younger and better looking every year while serious women sports journalists barely get a look in.

From Viv Richards to Imran Khan, female fans are supposed to be worshippers of looks and physique while the men are armed with cricketing lore, statistics, pitch details and field placements. A woman cricket fan doesn’t need to know all of that, she just needs to swoon and clap and try in vain to belong to the patriarchy of the bachelor party. When it comes to cricket, women are reduced to silly points and men are ahead by many wickets.