The Scoreboardless Meeting: The Heavy Word 'For Now' in Women's Cricket at Guwahati

October 5, 2026. A Monday. Guwahati. In a bare conference room nearly two thousand kilometres from the cricket headquarters in Mumbai sat Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and head coach Amol Muzumdar. There was no scoreboard, no green grass, no roar from the stands. Yet a match was being played — the one that follows every World Cup, the one whose result is never declared in a single day. Thirty-eight years of watching the game have taught me one thing: cricket's most brutal overs are not bowled on the field but in closed rooms, where the opposition is not a team but memory. England in June and July, then two continental titles, then this quiet room — nobody wanted to leave the circle open. On Wednesday afternoon I wrote in an old notebook: there is no announcement of change here, but there is a word heavier than any announcement — 'for now'.

The meeting was convened by BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia. At its centre was the disappointing T20 World Cup in England in June and July. Before that, the side had won the Women's Asia Cup in the UAE and gold at the Asian Games in Japan. Both were regional and continental titles. The global event was the real test, and there the team never found its rhythm.

The selectors are expected to meet the next day, when Amita Sharma's panel will pick the squad for Zimbabwe Women's tour of India. The series is six matches long — three ODIs and three T20Is. The T20Is are in Raipur on October 16, 18 and 20; the ODIs are in Vadodara on October 23, 26 and 28. It is the first-ever Zimbabwe Women's bilateral tour of India. That word, 'first', is the core marketing asset of this series. But there is a gap here: the ODI leg is part of the ICC Women's Championship 2026-29 points table, where India are a genuine contender. The six matches are not of equal weight — three are near warm-ups, three are quiet but serious obligations.

The shadow of last month's men's review, where the chief selector's absence caused controversy, falls on this meeting too. We are told there is no controversy here. That sounds reassuring, yet a question drifts quietly: did the women's chief selector attend?

Across decades I have seen this again and again — a side that fills its shelf with regional titles while standing on the wrong side of the door at global events usually has a problem of habit, not skill. That Asia Cup trophy, that gold in Japan — they are cold proof that this team is ruthless in familiar conditions against familiar opponents. But England's pitch, England's pace, England's pressure — there the same side speaks a different language. The pattern is clear: dominance in familiar conditions, a shortfall on unfamiliar global stages. Some call it flat-track strength; I call it a story of standing before a mirror that does not lie at home but tells a harsher truth abroad.

The real information of this meeting lies exactly there — this is not a sporting result, it is a governance signal. No decision was taken, no change made; the task of squad selection was simply passed to the selectors. The signal reads on three levels. The leadership stays unchanged; the softest possible bilateral series is next; and a window has opened to quietly cover the World Cup wound.

Look at the word: Harmanpreet is 'for now' secure. That 'for now' is today's biggest news, because it is not a declaration but a condition. The board is not saying she will stay long-term; it is saying there is no need to take the risk of a change at this moment. To those outside calling for a change of captaincy, this is a polite refusal. But in cricket the shelf life of 'for now' usually runs only until the next global tournament. One poor World Cup can turn it into an unplanned transition.

Smriti Mandhana's presence is another layer. As vice-captain she would naturally attend, but structurally she is the succession hedge. Captain, vice-captain and coach sat together, suggesting this is not a single-accountability inquest; the whole leadership unit is being assessed as a bloc. The absence of any discussion about coach Muzumdar's position is also telling — the pressure is currently concentrated on the captain and the playing group.

A caution is essential here. The source material contains no individual statistics for Harmanpreet or Mandhana — no strike rate, no average, no age-curve data. Any claim about form would therefore be false. What can be said is structural: under a long-tenured captain, a side repeatedly wins regionally yet cannot reach the global summit — this is often the point where experience and limitation merge. That is a hypothesis, not a conclusion, and honesty demands saying so.

The venue design deserves reading too. Six matches, two venues — all T20Is in Raipur, all ODIs in Vadodara. No travel churn in between, familiar conditions, low logistical cost. It signals the board's practical approach to a cheap series. In late October the pitches of central and western India are usually dry, and evening dew is a live factor. Dew in a night match costs spinners their grip in the second innings; for India's spin-heavy attack that is a small but real challenge.

And what some call 'workload management' is often the polite language for accommodating commercial tours and friendlies. The Women's Premier League — the single largest commercial driver of Indian women's cricket — is entirely absent from this discussion. No broadcast rights, no auction, no contract figures. So no commercial conclusion is possible; all we have is narrative capital.

I last watched this team closely at the England World Cup — at a tea stall in Rajshahi, where three of us sat around an old television. Each match day I wrote a letter; thirty-two letters piled up that month, each a small history. Letter nineteen was about the match where the side could not find its rhythm in the first ten overs, and where, despite wickets in hand, the door shut in the final five. The tea stall's ledger said sales were down that day — on a day of defeat the adda shrinks, the tea shrinks, the noise shrinks. Cricket's arithmetic is not only runs; it is also the number of teacups.

Now the question: how durable is this 'bounce-back' narrative? Its foundation is not solid, because the titles are regional and the failure is global. Two continental wins and one global failure do not make an upward trend — they are two faces of the same side. So the narrative's life usually runs only to the next global event, where the accounts will be settled again.

Now the part where the common reading goes wrong. We are told there is no controversy here, unlike the men's review. That phrase quietly covers an uncomfortable question. Whether the chief selector of a team attended the review of that same team is not a rumour; it is a basic accountability question. Declaring 'no controversy' without answering it means quietly conceding a transparency gap.

Second, the location. A national team review is usually held at the Mumbai headquarters. Choosing Guwahati suggests the meeting was likely piggybacked onto another board itinerary rather than convened solely for this review. Third, the 'historic' label. A first-ever tour is undoubtedly a milestone, but a milestone of novelty, not of competitiveness. Because the opponent is not competitive, the story is easy to sell — the product is not the match, it is the narrative.

Here I return to an old truth: a series designed for winning does not reveal weakness; it only temporarily covers it. The T20 World Cup wound can be washed away with a win over Zimbabwe, but washing and healing are not the same. And thinking of an empty conference room, I recall this — in the year the stadiums whisper, absence becomes its own chant.

The question therefore hangs until the next World Cup: when this side again stands before Australia or England, will 'for now' have become 'before it was too late'? A fixture list is really a poem with deadlines, and I collect endings the way others collect scarves — both keep the weather of a season. The scoreboardless room in Guwahati was silent today; the roar of the ground will tell the truth next time.