DY Patil Stadium Goes Gaga Over Women In Blue

On Thursday (Oct 23) the International Cricket Council (ICC) put out a release that a record 25166 spectators showed up to cheer the women in blue team at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai for its crucial league match against New Zealand. The BCCI (India) is the host of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup along with Sri Lanka (to facilitate Pakistan’s matches in the competition) and according to officials the turnout at Guwahati for the inaugural match between India and Sri Lanka was around 23000 and that big turnouts were seen at Visakhapatnam and Indore for matches featuring the women’s team looking to win its first ever ICC tournament. Once Bengaluru was ruled out of the World Cup itinerary because of certain shortcomings following the death of many people during RCB’s IPL victory celebrations, the ICC awarded five matches to the DY Patil Stadium created by the sports-loving Vijay Patil. The venue in the outskirts of Mumbai has been a popular one from 2008 when many IPL matches including the final was held there. Thereafter the locals demonstrated massive support for women’s internationals and the Women’s Premier League. No wonder the ICC chose the venue with good infrastructure for five World Cup matches including a semi-final and the final. A large turnout is expected for India’s last league match against Bangladesh. Harmanpreet Kaur’s team qualified for the semi-final with a resounding win against New Zealand with Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal hammering centuries. Two years ago, the men’s team drew massive crowds for its World Cup matches in India, including one lakh plus at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad for the final against Australia. Much the same is happening for the Women’s team, although the numbers are less.