Anaya Bangar, the daughter of former Indian cricketer Sanjay Bangar, has partnered with the Manchester Metropolitan College Institute of Sport within the U.Okay. to evaluate her physiological profile following her gender-affirming surgical procedure and present process hormone substitute remedy.
From January to March 2025, the 23-year-old underwent an eight-week analysis challenge that measured her glucose ranges, oxygen uptake, muscle mass, power, and endurance after intensive coaching.
The outcomes, shared by way of Instagram, revealed her metrics align with these of cisgender feminine athletes, positioning her as eligible for ladies’s cricket below present scientific requirements. Bangar’s findings problem the Worldwide Cricket Council’s 2023 ban on transgender athletes in girls’s cricket, prompting her to name for a science-based dialogue with the Board of Management for Cricket in India and the ICC to reform insurance policies for trans inclusion.
“I’m speaking with scientific proof in my hand,” Bangar stated in an interview posted to her Instagram web page. “So, I hope, this makes an affect and I can be hoping to BCCI and ICC speaking with me and discussing this additional.”
On Nov. 21, 2023, the ICC enacted a controversial coverage barring trans girls from worldwide girls’s cricket. Finalized after a board assembly in Ahmedabad, India, the regulation prohibits any trans participant who has skilled male puberty from competing, regardless of gender-affirming surgical procedure or hormone remedy. Developed by means of a 9-month session led by the ICC’s Medical Advisory Committee, the rule goals to safeguard the “integrity, security, and equity” of girls’s cricket however has drawn criticism for excluding athletes like Canada’s Danielle McGahey, the primary trans girl to play internationally. The coverage, which permits home boards to set their very own guidelines, is slated for evaluate by November 2025.
Bangar shared a doc on social media verifying her participation in a physiological examine on the Manchester Metropolitan College Institute of Sport, carried out from Jan. 20 to March 3, 2025, targeted on cricket efficiency. The report confirmed that her important metrics — together with hemoglobin, blood glucose, peak energy, and imply energy — aligned with these of cisgender feminine athletes. Initially, her fasting blood glucose measured 6.1 mmol/L, barely above the everyday non-diabetic vary of 4.0–5.9 mmol/L, however subsequent checks confirmed it normalized, reinforcing the examine’s findings that her bodily profile meets feminine athletic requirements.
“I’m submitting this to the BCCI and ICC, with full transparency and hope,” stated Bangar. “My solely intention is to start out a dialog primarily based on details not worry. To construct area, not divide it.”
In a letter to the BCCI and the ICC, Bangar emphasised her take a look at outcomes from the Manchester Metropolitan College examine. She defined that the analysis aimed to evaluate how hormone remedy had influenced her power, stamina, hemoglobin, glucose ranges, and general efficiency, benchmarked instantly towards cisgender feminine athletic requirements.
Bangar’s letter to the BCCI and the ICC clarified the Manchester examine was not meant as a political assertion however as a catalyst for a science-driven dialogue on equity and inclusion in cricket. She emphasised the significance of prioritizing empirical knowledge over assumptions to form equitable insurance policies for trans athletes within the sport.
Bangar urged the BCCI, the world’s most influential cricket authority, to provoke a proper dialogue on trans girls’s inclusion in girls’s cricket, rooted in medical science, efficiency metrics, and moral equity. She known as for the exploration of eligibility pathways primarily based on sport-specific standards, comparable to hemoglobin thresholds, testosterone suppression timelines, and standardized efficiency testing. Moreover, she advocated for collaboration with specialists, athletes, and authorized advisors to develop insurance policies that steadiness inclusivity with aggressive integrity.
“I’m releasing my report and story publicly not for sympathy, however for reality. As a result of inclusion doesn’t imply ignoring equity, it means measuring it, transparently and responsibly,” stated Bangar in a letter to the BCCI. “I might deeply admire the chance to fulfill with you or a consultant of the BCCI or ICC to current my findings, talk about doable coverage pathways, and work in direction of a future the place each athlete is evaluated primarily based on actual knowledge, not outdated perceptions.”
Earlier than her transition, Bangar competed for Islam Gymkhana in Mumbai and Hinckley Cricket Membership within the U.Okay., showcasing her expertise in home cricket circuits. Her father, Sanjay Bangar, was a reliable all-rounder for the Indian nationwide cricket staff from 2001 to 2004, taking part in 12 take a look at matches and 15 One Day Internationals. He later served as a batting coach for the Indian staff from 2014 to 2019, contributing to its strategic improvement.
Cricket in India is a cultural phenomenon, commanding a fanbase of greater than 1 billion, with greater than 80 % of world cricket viewership originating from the nation.
The Worldwide Cricket Council, the game’s governing physique, oversees 12 full member nations and greater than 90 affiliate members, with the U.S. lately gaining affiliate member standing in 2019 and co-hosting the 2024 ICC Males’s T20 World Cup. The BCCI generated roughly $2.25 billion in income within the 2023–24 monetary yr, primarily from the Indian Premier League, bilateral collection, and ICC income sharing. The ICC earns over $3 billion from media rights in India alone for the 2024–27 cycle, contributing practically 90 % of its international media rights income, with the BCCI receiving 38.5 % of the ICC’s annual earnings, roughly $231 million per yr.
Girls’s cricket in India enjoys a rising fanbase, with over 300 million viewers for the Girls’s Premier League in 2024, making it a major driver of the game’s international recognition. The Worldwide Cricket Council oversees girls’s cricket in 12 full member nations and over 90 affiliate members, with the U.S. fielding a girls’s staff since gaining affiliate standing in 2019 and competing in ICC occasions just like the 2024 Girls’s T20 World Cup qualifiers. The BCCI invests closely in girls’s cricket, allocating roughly $60 million yearly to the WPL and home packages in 2024–25, whereas contributing to the ICC’s $20 million price range for ladies’s cricket improvement globally. India’s media marketplace for girls’s cricket, together with WPL broadcasting rights, generated $120 million in 2024, accounting for over 50 % of the ICC’s girls’s cricket media income.
“As a girl, I really feel when somebody says that they’re girls, then they’re, be trans or cis. A trans girl is unquestionably the identical as a cis girl emotionally and in vitals, and specifically, when somebody is on hormone substitute remedy. Stopping Anaya Bangar from taking part in is discrimination and violation of her rights. It’s actually unhappy and painful that each trans girl must struggle and show their id all over the place,” stated Indrani Chakraborty, an LGBTQ rights activist and a mom of a trans girl. “If ICC and BCCI is stopping her from taking part in for being transgender, then I’ll say this to be their lack of expertise and naturally the social mindsets which deny acceptance.”
Chakraborty informed the Blade that Bangar is an asset, it doesn’t matter what. She stated that the ladies’s cricket staff will solely profit by participation, however the discriminating insurance policies are the hindrance.
“Truly the transgender group face such discrimination in each sphere. Regardless of being potent, they face rejection. That is extremely inhuman. These attitudes is regressive and can by no means let to prosper. Are we actually in 2025?,” stated Chakraborty. “We, our mindset and the society are the problems. We, as an entire, must get conscious and have to return collectively for getting justice for Anaya. If at this time, we stay silent, your complete group can be oppressed. Correct data of gender points have to be understood.”
The BCCI and the Worldwide Cricket Council haven’t responded to the Blade’s repeated requests for remark.
