No institution in city has women’s cricket team!

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, July 21

Even as Moga girl Harmanpreet Kaur produced one of the greatest ODI knocks in women’s cricket at Derby, the city-based educational institutes have so far not felt any need to have women’s cricket team on their campuses and provide them training.

Harman, who made a powerful 171 off 115 balls, taking India to a 36-run win over Australia in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup semi-final, has been hogging limelight since the win. Even as Jalandhar is considered a sports hub with training being provided in most sports events, cricket perhaps is still considered a male-dominated game.

Sukhwinder Kaur, head, sports department, HMV College, said, “Harmanpreet is the alumnus of our college. She passed out in 2009. We were having women’s cricket squad in the past, but due to some reasons and less response of the girls towards the game, the team couldn’t sustain itself for long. We are planning to have a women’s team but nothing is official yet.”

According to Parminder Kaur, women’s hockey coach at the Lyallpur Khalsa College for Women, “The culture or the activities held in the institution decide its preference for the sport. In our college, since long the girls are excelling in hockey. We give excellent training and take our students at national and international levels. The institute never had cricket squad. We also do not have any such plans for the future too.”

Lauding the achievement of Harmanpreet, KMV Sports Department head, Ashu Bajaj said, “The girl has done a wonderful job and made the whole country proud. Though we do not have any women’s cricket squad in the college, I personally feel the city needs a good women’s cricket squad that can represent Jalandhar in various tournaments. For this year, we could not plan for having team, but probably next year we will surely give it a thought.”