India’s women cricketers front the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup campaign

There's a photograph that cricket fans in India still can't stop looking at: the Indian women's cricket team hoisting the World Cup trophy on November 2, 2025. For years, decades even, that reality had remained just out of reach. Close calls, heartbreaks, near-misses. But that one November evening, everything changed.

What nobody quite anticipated was just how much would change.

Months later, as India prepares to host the ICC Men's T20 World Cup beginning February 7, something unusual is happening on screens across the country. The campaign for the men's tournament doesn't feature a single male cricketer until later in the film. Instead, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, and Deepti Sharma fill the frame, wearing the men's team jerseys, confidently declaring that the trophy will stay home.

It's a small thing, perhaps. A marketing decision. But for anyone who has followed Indian cricket over the years, it feels like witnessing history fold back on itself.

For the longest time, the equation was simple and one-directional. When women's cricket needed visibility, the men showed up. Captains like Rohit Sharma appeared in campaigns, urging fans to support the women's team.

The women played on, regardless. In smaller venues, with less fanfare, building something brick by brick. And then came that November night, when years of work crystallised into one glorious moment.

The World Cup victory didn't just add silverware to India's cricket cabinet. It shifted something fundamental in how the country saw women's cricket, not as a sideshow or a developmental project, but as champions in their own right.

JioStar's campaign film opens with Rodrigues reflecting on that World Cup victory.

"Now that one cup is already home," they say, "we won't let another leave."

With this, the uno reversal is complete. The women who once needed the men's star power to draw eyes are now the ones carrying the promotional weight for a men's tournament. They wear jerseys bearing Suryakumar Yadav's name and number, a symbolic gesture that hasn't been lost on anyone watching.

The campaign has sparked conversations that go beyond cricket. It's raised questions about visibility, credibility, and how quickly perceptions can shift when given the right catalyst. 

What this campaign has done, whether intentionally or not, is hold up a mirror to how far things have come. Not long ago, the idea of women cricketers headlining a men's tournament campaign would have seemed unthinkable.

As February 7 approaches and cricket fever builds across India and Sri Lanka, the campaign serves as more than just tournament promotion. A sense that Indian cricket, in all its forms, belongs to everyone who wears the blue jersey.

That November victory didn't just bring home a trophy. It brought home a new understanding of what Indian cricket could be, a space where support flows both ways, where champions lift each other up, and where the question of who deserves the spotlight becomes beautifully irrelevant.

The men's World Cup begins in less than a month. Win or lose, one thing is already certain: Indian cricket will never look quite the same again.