What Nayar's experience in women's cricket exposes about pathways

Abhishek Nayar, the new head coach of UP Warriorz, reflected on his transition to coaching a women's team. "I'm wrapping my head around it," he said. "A lot of coaches told me to be direct. In men's cricket, there's established trust—you say 'go over covers,' they know exactly how. In women's cricket, the attention to detail needs to be greater. Sometimes you have to break things down more than you'd expect. It’s a more hands-on job. I’m teaching myself to speak up more, and they’re incredibly receptive."

Nayar’s background includes coaching in men’s international cricket, the IPL, Mumbai cricket, and emerging setups like Puducherry, mentoring players from youngsters to seasoned professionals like KL Rahul and Dinesh Karthik. For someone with his experience to find this role novel highlights a significant gap in cricketing pathways for men and women.

The confusion around instructions like "go over covers" points to a lack of quality game time and coaching depth in women’s cricket. While aspiring male cricketers play year-round, girls often have only one or two tournaments annually. Even at district levels in India, girls might get just 10–12 competitive matches a year. Club cricket is scarce outside metros, compounded by social barriers that discourage families from allowing daughters to pursue sports competitively.

Social factors further limit participation: concerns like skin tanning affecting marriage prospects in a country with a large fairness cream market, and household chores where Indian women spend over 300 minutes daily—ten times more than men on average. This leads to fewer matches and less competition, meaning talented cricketers are identified early and fast-tracked to national or WPL levels, where they learn skills that men often develop at domestic, school, or club stages.

As a result, women players can lack the cricket smarts of their male counterparts at similar levels, learning and making mistakes on live television in front of large audiences. These mistakes might seem amateurish to viewers accustomed to men’s cricket.

Nayar acknowledged the challenges: "In men’s cricket, you have to be mindful of what you say. In women’s cricket, they’re very receptive, so you can dive into details. But trust takes time. When incidents like Harleen’s retired out happen, it becomes harder. This role is different, fun, challenging—it’s testing me in every way and preparing me for the IPL differently, but it hasn’t been easy." The silver lining, he notes, is the players’ willingness to learn.