Follow UsWomen’s cricketing calendar is such that Test cricket is often an anomaly in between the rigorous white-ball fixtures. Harmanpreet Kaur’s India are no different, with them just playing two Tests in the 2022-25 Future Tour Programme (FTP), with both the Tests in India - against Australia and England.
India’s captain Harmanpreet batted for more Tests and insisted that ‘Test cricket’ remains a dream for several budding cricketers in the country. Since making his debut in 2009, Harmanpreet has just played three Tests for the country, with just 38 runs against the red-ball.
"As a player, I definitely want more Tests because as a growing kid, we saw more Tests on TV than T20s," Harmanpreet said while interviewed on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast. "Nowadays it's a lot of fun playing T20s but Test cricket is something every cricketer wants to play.
Harmanpreet also hoped to bring back the ultimate format of the game in women’s cricket, insisting that the longest format remains integral for the health of the sport.
"This year we have two Tests - one against England and one against Australia - and I hope those games can make a huge impact on women's cricket and hopefully in the future we will keep getting more Test matches. We have to bring back Test matches in women's cricket because it's very important for women's cricket."
The last time there was a multi-day event in the country, the year was 2017-18, and since then, the action has been restricted to just white-ball formats.
"Trust me, [domestic cricket] has improved a lot," she said. "Initially when I started playing, we hardly got domestic games but for the last couple of years, domestic level has improved a lot. We are getting more games and some domestic games are live also, people can watch on TV.
"It is improving day by day but in my early days we used to play two- and three-day games which we are really missing, and I'm sure after these two Test matches hopefully we'll get two-day matches back. The more cricket we get, the more improvement we'll see in women's cricket.
Earlier this year, women’s cricket was given more relevance and a platform when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), a tournament that took a lot of influence from the Indian Premier League.
Whilst it was definitely late, Harmanpreet insisted that it started on the right note, which will help women’s cricket in the country.
"At least it started and started in such a way that everyone liked it. Maybe we were a little scared, [wondering] what if people won't like it, but the response we got for WPL, some of the audience, they were more interested in women's IPL than men's because it was something new to watch and they really liked it. Hopefully, after some years, we'll add more teams, more players."