When India hosts the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup later this year — the first in over a decade — you’d expect fireworks, fanfare, and the grandest stages in Indian cricket. Instead, the announcement felt like a rushed homework assignment: just four venues quietly named, none of them the iconic stadiums that have defined the nation’s cricketing heartbeat.
Guwahati. Visakhapatnam. Indore. Bengaluru. That’s it. No Wankhede. No Eden Gardens. No Chinnaswamy. While these cities are not without merit, the choices feel oddly disconnected from the women’s game’s growing momentum. It’s as if the BCCI is rotating stadiums for the sake of rotation — and sacrificing marketing, visibility, and magic in the process.
India has hosted the Women’s ODI World Cup three times before — 1978, 1997, and 2013 — and each time, the spread of venues was broader and bolder. In 1997, the event was a true festival: 25 grounds across the country, from Eden Gardens in Kolkata to Wankhede in Mumbai, MA Chidambaram in Chennai, and M. Chinnaswamy in Bangalore. Crowds poured in, the scale matched the ambition, and India reached the semi-finals. Even in 2013, the final was staged at Mumbai’s high-profile Brabourne Stadium.
Fast forward to 2025: the Women’s Premier League has proved women’s cricket can fill big stadiums in Mumbai, Delhi, and Lucknow — yet the World Cup has been reduced to four mid-tier venues. For the men’s 2023 ODI World Cup, India rolled out the red carpet with ten world-class stadiums. For the women? Only one of the chosen grounds (Visakhapatnam) has hosted women’s internationals in the past decade.
The decision is even stranger given Bengaluru’s original role. The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium was set to host the opener, a semi-final, and possibly the final — until tragedy struck. On June 4, during Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s IPL celebrations, a crowd crush claimed 11 lives and injured over 50. A Justice D’Cunha-led probe declared the venue “fundamentally unsafe” for large events, citing flawed design, poor crowd management, limited entry/exit points, and weak public transport links.
Thiruvananthapuram’s inclusion isn’t about history or fan potential — it’s about logistics. With Pakistan qualifying but refusing to play in India, some matches will be shifted to Sri Lanka, and the city’s visa clearance facilities make it a convenient travel base. That’s contingency planning, not a strategic showpiece choice.
This World Cup is India’s first without icons Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami — a golden opportunity to showcase a new generation of stars on cricket’s grandest Indian stages. Instead, the venue list reads more like a domestic Challenger Trophy schedule than the pinnacle of the women’s game.
Historic ICC women’s finals have graced Lord’s (2017), the MCG (2020), Hagley Oval (2022), Newlands (2023), and Dubai International Stadium (2024). India’s answer? Four grounds that, while capable, lack the history, reach, and resonance to make this a truly national celebration.
The players will still give everything. Fans will still cheer. But years from now, we may remember not the brilliance on the field — but the opportunity lost off it. Women’s cricket in India deserves more than hand-me-down venues and half-hearted planning. It deserves the roar of Eden Gardens, the lights of Wankhede, and the world watching. Anything less isn’t just poor scheduling — it’s a statement.
