World Cup offers an air of freshness to sombre Guwahati

There is an air of newness around the Women's World Cup 2025.

Harmanpreet Kaur and Alyssa Healy may now be synonymous as India and Australia captains, but this is their first ODI World Cup as captains - replacing the now-retired Mithali Raj and Meg Lanning, respectively. Nat Sciver-Brunt is only two series old as England's skipper. Chamari Athapaththu will be playing her first 50-over ICC event in home conditions and Sri Lanka return to the competition after missing out in 2022.

Off the field, the first cricket World Cup in Guwahati is less of a celebration. The city - and by extension the state of Assam, the gateway to north-east India - is mourning the loss of one of its own in singer Zubeen Garg, who passed away last week. Apart from his songs, he was known for his philanthropy.

Durga Puja, a festival celebrated grandly in eastern India, has also been scaled down hugely. There won't be the usual grand processions. For those living in Guwahati, the city itself feels very different. This is the unlikely backdrop for what promises to be a huge ICC event.

Never mind that four of the five venues haven't hosted a women's game in recent years, the eight teams will vie for record prize money - a sum (USD 13.8 million) that is higher than what was at stake at the 2023 Men's ODI World Cup (USD 10 million). With the subcontinent hosting a Women's ODI World Cup after 12 years, the level of competition is also expected to be higher. The WBBL has existed for close to a decade now, but this is the first time the effects of the various leagues such as the WPL and the Hundred will be seen.

For instance, Sri Lanka beat India for only the third time in ODIs earlier this year. India, on their part, beat Australia for the first time at home and ended their 13-match winning streak.

"We are playing in the subcontinent and that's a good advantage for us," Athapaththu said on the eve of the World Cup-opener against India. "But if we take too much pressure and think too much about this, we can't play our best cricket."

From days of sparsely filled stadiums to endless demands for tickets, Harmanpreet has witnessed it all in her career. She has also suffered heartbreak in front of close to 90,000 people at the 2020 T20 World Cup final in Melbourne. With the DY Patil ground in Mumbai, that attracted close to 50,000 people during the WPL, pencilled in to host the final of this World Cup, she has a chance to be on the other side of the equation in what could be her last 50-over World Cup.

"Firstly, earlier five fielders used to be outside, now there are four," Harmanpreet joked when asked about the changes in women's cricket over the last decade. "Besides that, we are playing in bigger stadiums - the last time we played at the CCI [Brabourne stadium in Mumbai]. The stadiums are packed every time we play. Apart from that, we also see a lot of 300-plus scores, which was not normal earlier. I could go on about it all night."

The exponential growth of the women's game has everybody buzzing. "I want to see some Asian team lift the trophy," Athapaththu said, "Maybe Sri Lanka, maybe India, maybe Pakistan, maybe Bangladesh. Every time Australia, England and New Zealand have been dominant. In Asia, cricket is like a second religion; it's a privilege to play on home soil. So I want an Asian team to win."

India and Sri Lanka's game at the ACA Stadium on Tuesday could well be the start of something new.