India eves hope sponsorship follows financial rewards

NEW DELHI: Indian’s women cricketers have attained overnight stardom and are now hoping the handsome financial rewards for their stellar World Cup show will be followed by lucrative sponsorship deals, which their male counterparts attract.

Ten of the 15 squad members have job security as they are employed with the Indian Railways but they feel it is time top corporates also open up to women’s cricket.

It has been almost a week since the World Cup final at Lord’s but most of the squad members are yet to be approached for sponsorship.

Captain Mithali Raj is among the few who have tied up a sports management company to take care of her commercial interests. The cricketers may have become household names but they have not yet attracted much interest as far as sponsorship is concerned. India’s star allrounder Deepti Sharma, all of 19, did not have much clue when inquired about a major corporate showing interest in her. For now, she is just happy that she has got a kit sponsor. “Vampire has been sponsoring my equipment for a while now. That’s about it,” Deepti, who hopes to get a Railways job just like the majority of her teammates.

“My father also retired from the Railways so it will be nice if I get to work there too,” she added. The 21-year-old opener Smriti Mandhana, whose form deserted her after a scintillating 90 and 106 in the opening two World Cup games, says she has been approached by companies. “I have been talking to a few companies about sponsorship. Hopefully things will work out. It will be nice to have sponsors behind us after all the support we have got from the BCCI and Railways,” said the Mumbaiborn southpaw. NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the BCCI on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s plea to seek an e-auction of the media rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for more transparency.

A Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra sought a response from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) within two weeks and posted the matter for August 24.

The auction process for IPL media rights is scheduled to begin on August 17. The rights would be in force for five years.

Swamy said the apex court has earlier held that e-auction is the best method for awarding contracts.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said since an amount of Rs 30,000 crore was involved in the award of IPL media rights, the issue should not be decided in an opaque manner.

“There is a requirement of non-discriminatory and transparent method, (in line) with the best international practices, to be adopted for distribution of valuable media rights so as to ensure maximum revenue in the larger national interest,” he pleaded.

“The commercial interests and huge money is involved, amounting to Rs 25,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore, in the valuable rights associated with the game of cricket in India, which makes it mandatory to have a robust, completely transparent auction method to maximise revenue and prevent vested interest from making undue gains,” Subramanian Swamy added.