India’s U19 Women’s World Cup team won the inaugural U19 Women’s World Cup in South Africa.
Shafali Verma and Co. have also received great accolades and rewards for their outstanding performance in the tournament.
In the final at Potchefstroom, India bowled out England for a paltry score of 68 and then reached the target with four overs to spare.
India women won the match by seven wickets. After this win, wishes and congratulations poured in from India for the girls in Blue.
First up, it was India men’s skipper Rohit Sharma and former skipper Virat Kohli who gave their congratulations to the young girls.
Says Rohit,
Big congratulations to the U-19 girls cricket team for winning the World Cup. Well done on making the nation proud.
On the other hand, Kohli says,
U-19 World Cup Champions! What a special moment! Congratulations girls on your triumph.
Shafali Verma duly made up for the heartbreaking loss to Australia at the senior women’s T20 World Cup final in 2020.
BCCI announces cash prize for India’s U19 Women’s World Cup team
Meanwhile, the BCCI has announced a cash prize of $600,000 for the U19 Women’s team and also a grand invitation to come and witness the third and final T20I between India men’s and New Zealand men’s teams.
Writes Secretary Jay Shah,
Women’s cricket in India is on the upswing and the World Cup triumph has taken the stature of women’s cricket several notches higher.
Adding further, he says,
This is surely a path-breaking year.
Moreover, India’s win comes at the perfect time because the BCCI has just finalized the deal with the five franchisees for the Women’s Premier League.
The tournament is scheduled for March this year and the BCCI has earned a whopping $572.5 million from the five bids for the five teams.
Additionally, the board has also earned $116.7 million from Viacom18 who has grabbed the media rights for WPL for the next five seasons.
Says West Indies’ great, Ian Bishop,
The timing of this historic win combined with the pending Women’s IPL has the potential to shift the balance of power in the women’s game in a few years.
England women remain upbeat despite loss in the U19 Women’s World Cup final
On the other hand, England women’s skipper Grace Scrivens showed no signs of breakdown despite losing in the final.
This was their first loss in the tournament. In the semifinal, England successfully beat Australia as they defended their score of 100.
But, they couldn’t get past India in the final as their batting order collapsed.
Scrivens has hailed her side for playing superbly throughout the tournament.
Obviously it’s a hard pill to swallow and the girls are a bit gutted. But I think the way we played throughout the tournament was unbelievable.
She was then asked what was her message to her players after their first innings collapse. Scrivens says,
The message was ‘let’s keep backing ourselves and let’s try and go again’. But it’s a tough one when you’re trying to defend a low score.
Concluding, she says,
But I think we backed ourselves-obviously India batted well and made well of that total.
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