ESA Mumbai Indians: Why are Mumbai Indians Wearing WPL Jersey in MI vs KKR IPL 2023 Match?

Mumbai Indians will wear their Women’s Premier League 2023 jersey in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. This is done for the special ESA Day (Education and Sports For All), an initiative by Reliance Foundation.

Mumbai Indians Women won the inaugural edition of WPL by beating Delhi Capitals Women in the final of the tournament. The team was led by Harmanpreet Kaur, and they created history by becoming the first-ever champions.

The jersey of both sides are almost similar. In the Women’s jersey, they have used the pink colour as well apart from the regular blue and gold. The franchise had said that the women’s jersey is inspired by the coral hues of the setting sun across the bay’s blue sky. The gold ray graphics across the waistline reflect the powerful energy of the sun’s rays

ESA Mumbai Indians

ESA (Education and Sports For All) is a special day that the franchise has been celebrating since 2010. Every season, Mumbai hosts a game at Wankhede Stadium where children from different NGOs are invited to the stadium to watch the match and cheer their stars.

A total of 19,000 girls from 36 NGOs and 200 special children will be in attendance for the MI vs KKR match. This match is dedicated to girls to spotlight girls’ right to education and sport. For the same reason, the men’s team will wear the women’s team’ jersies.

All the children will be seen wearing Mumbai’s jersey as well. A total of 500 BEST buses and 2000 volunteers have been hired to make it a smooth process.

Mark Boucher supports the ESA initiave

Mumbai’s head coach Mark Boucher has also supported the initiative and has said that this should inspire everyone around the globe as well. Mumbai’s women’s team bowling coach Jhulan Goswami has also appreciated the step taken by the franchise to promote women in sports.

“Mumbai Indians have been fantastic in creating this initiative and hopefully, it’s going to go out to the rest of the world. The biggest lesson is that they will take away from this game as well is that seeing sports and inspiring them to be able to play sport at a professional level one day,” Boucher was quoted as saying in a video uploaded on MI’s Twitter handle.