Women take to cricket- They have my unconditional support

My mother taught me my basic cricket. Things like where mid off stood were taught to me by her. It went a great way in spicing up the commentary I was hearing.

I was 5 or 6 at the time and I remember being bemused by off-side, leg side and fine-leg. She took the pain to draw an oval outline and define which is offside and leg side and the other fielding positions.

Add a couple of Aunts who used to bet on how much Farookh Engineer would score, you can say that I was always aware of the universal appeal of the game.

Somehow the last 5 years had dulled me into thinking the women did not like cricket. What with a wife, who in an unholy alliance with my daughter always seem to have a monopoly on the remote you cant blame me for thinking so. ( No, a second TV has not helped matters, now the alliance has split and a truce has resulted in each monopolising different TV sets.)

So it came as a pleasant surprise to me to learn that woman above 15 years have been glued to cricket during the Twenty20 semi finals. In fact the TVR ratings for the Twenty20 semifinal registered 12.8 among woman above 15 years, making it the highest rated TV programme in that segment of the audience.

I am all for them taking to cricket. The future looks promising, in another 10 years,I may get to watch a cricket match in full. My daughter will turn 15 then.