The Punam Raut Cricket Academy was unveiled at the Poinsur Gymkhana at Kandivali West in the presence of the India opener’s teammate, Harmanpreet Kaur. Most of India’s women cricketers have been busy travelling around the country after their fine display in the ICC Women’s World Cup in England, but the cricketing authorities in the Mumbai suburbs have trained their attention on women’s cricket by setting up an academy and appealing to the girls to take up the sport.
The BCCI has also doing its bit introducing new tournaments across age groups. “Earlier there were not many domestic matches for women, but this year the BCCI is working on it and we will get good quality and more number of matches, said Harmanpreet, who scored a scintillating undefeated 171 against Australia in the semifinal.
Punam who was one of the star players of the World Cup is confident that BCCI’s new initiatives will see women’s cricket take big strides. “The India -A team idea is good. More girls will start playing the sport now. We get to play less number of series. But more matches will give opportunities,’’ she said.
The local Member of Parliament, Poonam Mahajan was the chief guest and the two MCA Jt. Honorary Secretaries, Dr. P. V. Shetty and Dr. Unmesh Khanwilker were present at the academy launch.
