India's women players cash in on World Cup glory

KOLKATA, India :The brand value of India's top women cricketers has gone through the roof following their fairytale World Cup triumph on home soil with top sports marketing experts calling it a "watershed moment" for the sport.

After a hat-trick of defeats nearly derailed their campaign, India stunned seven-times champions Australia in the semi-finals and outplayed South Africa in the November 2 final to claim their maiden 50-overs World Cup title.

Since that midnight victory in front of a delirious capacity crowd in Navi Mumbai, the phone has not stopped ringing for 36-year-old captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her teammates.

Within hours of the final South African wicket falling, Kaur was beaming from the front pages of newspapers after being unveiled as brand ambassador for a real estate developer.

When batter Harleen Deol playfully asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi about his skin care routine as he hosted the team, a cosmetic brand swooped in to catch the afterglow.

The brand's new campaign has Deol, 27, asking everyone their skin care routine before revealing her own choice, and there were no prizes for guessing which one she selected.

Even before the final, a detergent brand turned the photo of 25-year-old batter Jemimah Rodrigues's mud-splattered shirt into a viral campaign, even if the garment ended up framed, not cleaned.

"It's a watershed moment for women's cricket and also women's sports because now all these girls have become household names," Tuhin Mishra, Managing Director and co-founder of Baseline Ventures, told Reuters.

India's victorious World Cup squad had four players represented by Baseline, including 29-year-old vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and stumper-batter Richa Ghosh, 22.

"We are getting a lot of queries. A