Beyond Cricket: The New Generation of Indian Women Athletes Making History

There is a moment, somewhere in the sixth over of that run-chase in the 2026 WPL final, when Smriti Mandhana — burning up with fever, unknown to anyone watching — starts hitting the ball into areas that shouldn't exist for someone sick, tired, and chasing 204 on the biggest stage of the domestic season. She scored 87 off 41 balls, with a strike rate of 212. She didn't show it. Nobody in the team knew.

That innings tells you everything you need to know about where Indian women's sport sits today. Not where it was. Where it is now.

A World Cup That Changed Everything

On November 2, 2025, India defeated South Africa by 52 runs in the Women's ODI World Cup final at the DY Patil Stadium — winning the title for the first time in history. Harmanpreet Kaur, who led the team, became only the third Indian captain ever to lift an ODI World Cup, after Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni. The two before her were both men.

Smriti Mandhana, who scored 434 runs in the tournament including a century against New Zealand, finished as India's highest scorer. She crossed 5,000 ODI runs during the campaign, reaching the milestone faster than any Indian woman before her. She also became the first Indian cricketer to score a century in all three formats of the international game. By December 2025, she crossed 10,000 runs in international cricket across formats.

These are not footnotes in sporting history. These are landmarks.

And Mandhana wasn't done. In the 2026 WPL season, she led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to their second title in three years, finishing as the tournament's highest run-scorer with 377 runs. RCB chased down the highest total in WPL history — 204 — to win the final by six wickets. The women's game in India has officially found its ecosystem, and it is thriving.

Beyond Cricket: Champions Are Emerging Everywhere

It would be a mistake to reduce India's women's sports story to cricket alone, even in a year as dominant as 2025–26.

In chess, Divya Deshmukh — who won the Emerging Player of the Year award at the BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year ceremony in February 2026 — had a breakthrough season that captured the imagination of fans well beyond the chess community. In a sport dominated for decades by Indian men, her rise felt genuinely historic.

In judo, two athletes from Manipur — Linthoi Chanambam and Taibanganbi Chanu — have been rewriting Indian records. Linthoi became the first Indian to win gold at the World Cadet Judo Championships. Taibanganbi followed with a bronze at the World Junior Championships, also a first for India. These are young women from a northeastern state competing at the absolute top of a global sport. Their stories rarely get the coverage they deserve.

In motorsport, the Indian Racing Festival's mandate requiring one female driver per team has created visible pathways where none existed before. Rashi Shah, a 21-year-old from Mumbai, was selected for the Racing Women Global Competition 2025–26 in Sweden. Atiqa Mir, a 12-year-old from Srinagar, became the first Indian to win the Champions of the Future Academy karting title. Twelve years old, from Kashmir, winning a global karting title. India doesn't always see its own champions coming.

The Institution Is Catching Up

The BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year Awards, held in New Delhi in February 2026, celebrated a remarkable breadth of talent. Para-athlete Preethi Pal was honoured for her Paralympic achievements. Shooter Anjali Bhagwat received the Lifetime Achievement Award for a career that opened doors that younger women are now walking through.

The BCCI has invested heavily in the WPL infrastructure, creating a professional league that now commands genuine attention and commercial interest. Women cricketers are signing contracts, attracting sponsors and building personal brands in ways that were simply not possible five years ago. Smriti Mandhana was signed for Rs 34 million at the inaugural WPL auction — the highest price at the sale. That number was not just symbolic; it was structural. It told the market what women's cricket was worth.

The TOPS programme has also included more women athletes in its core group, providing funding for overseas training and international exposure that was previously unavailable to most. The pathway from raw talent to elite competition is narrower than it should be, but it is wider than it has ever been.

What Still Needs to Change

Honesty compels an acknowledgment of what remains frustrating. Coverage of women's sport — outside cricket — is still thin. The sponsorship ecosystem for non-cricket women's sports is underdeveloped. Athletes like Linthoi Chanambam or Taibanganbi Chanu will struggle to find brand partners despite world-class performances, simply because they play sports that don't come with broadcast deals.

Pay parity remains a discussion, not a reality. Coaching infrastructure for women's athletics, wrestling, boxing and hockey needs significantly more investment. And the cultural barriers that still persuade families to discourage daughters from pursuing sport professionally have not vanished — they have merely become less visible in headline-friendly contexts.

The Verdict

India's women are not rising anymore. In many areas, they have risen. The task now — for administrators, sponsors and media — is to make sure the infrastructure rises with them. Because the talent is there. It always was. It just needed someone to believe it before they did.

Smriti Mandhana played through a fever to score 87 in a final. That says everything about the generation that has arrived.