None of our petted and pampered male cricketers even made it to the short list at the last International Cricket Council (ICC) awards for cricket. But, India however did not go unrepresented. Doing India proud and bagging the International Women’s Cricketer of the Year award was the 23-year-old Indian fast bowler and the mainstay of the Indian women’s cricket team, Jhulan Goswami. (Did you ask Jhulan what?)

In her thanksgiving speech Jhulan remarked that she was proud to win the award, also adding that not many know that women play cricket in India. Of course had a Sachin, a Saurav or a Dravid won the award the media would have gone to town with the news and agents would have been busy signing more multi-million-rupee contracts. One wonders whether Jhulan has even been approached to endorse anything at all in the market, thanks to her new found place in the sun.

For decades now Indian women’s cricket has been a poor cousin to the men’s game. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which knows where the money is, has wisely chosen to concentrate on men.

Over the years India has produced many sterling women cricketers — from Arjuna Awardee Shanta Rangaswamy to Sudha Shah, Diana Eduljee and many others. They were in no way inferior to men in terms of technique or achievement. But they never rose in popularity as women’s cricket was never taken seriously at any point of time.

If this is the woebegone status of Indian women’s cricket, other sports involving women too have not been faring better in terms of sponsorships or recognition. Someone like Chess Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, tipped as future world champion by no less a person than the men’s World Champion Vishwanathan Anand, has to always struggle for sponsors. When a sponsorship was not being renewed, she had to hunt high and low to find another. Chess, as connoisseurs know, is no poor man’s game and involves not just laptops and other gadgets, but also hiring expensive seconds, who charge a bomb.

If the Humpys of women’s chess are still fighting on, it is a tribute to their sheer will power. India has also produced a women’s world champion in billiards — the soft-spoken Chitra Magimairaj, a resident of Bangalore.

Despite being compared to the world billiards men’s champion and fellow Bangalorean Pankaj Advani, Chitra ranks low in popularity.

For every P T Usha, who could strike it rich and find the wherewithal to start her own academy, there are more women athletes who are not getting their due. The only exception where popularity, endorsements and media attention is concerned should be Sania Mirza. But tennis is no team sport and Sania has achieved enough and more to deserve all the mileage she gets.

In all other disciplines, men continue to hog the limelight while women still have to play second fiddle. This apathy towards women’s sports is hardly surprising for sports today is not about winning coveted titles or glory for the nation. It is more about greenbacks and rolls and rolls of dough. Sports bodies like the BCCI can vouchsafe for this.