Women, not gentlemen game for cricket at Jaipur Literature Festival

Cricket is no more a game of gentlemen only. Now, it’s also a sport of women even if you don’t call them gentle. It was not the findings of the JLF session “The Cricket Novel” held on Sunday.

But, as about half of the audience comprised of the fairer sex and the way women kept glued to their seats during the session a good number of men folk started leaving the venue, itself speaks about women’s keen interest in the game which earlier was the domain of men only.

Netherland writer Joseph O’ Neill, who has succeeded in converting his passion for cricket in the form of a fictional work ‘The Cricket Novel’, said during the session that he did not want to read out excerpts from his novel as he feared that women might start leaving the venue. But the host reminded him that now the women also show a keen interest in the sport once branded as ‘gentlemen’s game’. The female members of the audience proved it to be right by keeping glued to their seats during the entire session while some of the men started leaving mid-way during the session. And the female members of the audience comprised of women from almost all the age groups, be it teenagers, young, middle-aged or old women. Not only this, the female attendees at the session also enthusiastically asked questions from the author.