The Next 100 Years: A New Chapter in India-New Zealand Sport

In May 2026, Women in Sport India (WISI) had the privilege of hosting delegates from the Asia New Zealand Foundation. The interactions spread across – an informal coffee meet in Mumbai, a roundtable discussion at Ahmedabad between delegates from both nations, and a handful of online conversations in the weeks before they arrived.  

Women in Sport India (WISI) is India's leadership institution for women in sport founded by Vaidehi Vaidya in 2020. WISI builds the pipelines, programmes, and rooms that move qualified women into positions of leadership across the sports industry, working toward 35% women in sport leadership by 2036

As a gesture of welcome, we were gifted a book called Atua Wāhine. Beautifully designed and carrying a foreword that resonated long after the visit concluded. That is when some things started to make sense. 

Priyanka and Erin in Mumbai. Image supplied.

Across every one of the above interactions, there was an unexpected sense of warmth and comfort. The usual hesitation between two organizations meeting for the first time was gone almost before it started. Understanding each other's challenges, cultural context, and vision for women in sport – locally and globally, felt organic in a way we hadn't quite anticipated. 

As I read through the pages of Atua Wāhine, it felt like home. Seventeen Māori goddesses each representing an element of nature, a cycle of change, a force of life. The book captures seventeen stories, though there are many more in traditions. Anyone familiar with Indian philosophy will recognize how uncanny the resemblance is to our own Devis - goddesses who likewise embody the critical elements of life and nature. Sit the Māori and Bhāratiya traditions side by side and one thing becomes obvious: Gender equality, in leadership and in philosophy, was never a debate in either culture. It was in fact the foundation. And both countries have kept these stories so alive across centuries that they still feel present-tense today – carried through greetings, conversations, public references and everyday thought, not archived in textbooks. 

That is not a small thing to discover in a first meeting. It meant that when we sat down to talk about the harder, practical questions like governance, funding, coaching pipelines, broadcast deals – we weren't starting as strangers negotiating common ground. We were starting as two cultures that had already agreed, long before either of us existed as institutions, that female strength wasn't a debate worth having. 

A century in the making 

It helps that this wasn't the first time India and New Zealand had reason to cross paths over sport. A hundred years ago, India's Army hockey team boarded a ship for New Zealand on a two-month tour with young men wanting a contest, nothing more. One player on that ship, Dhyan Chand, went on to become India's most decorated Olympian. Nobody on that boat was thinking about the next hundred years. But that tour is where this relationship visibly started. 

The Asia New Zealand Foundation marked that centenary this year by bringing a delegation back. But the Foundation asked for something more: a closed-door conversation with us about the one part of the India–New Zealand sporting relationship that has never really been built — women. Six New Zealand delegates sat down with six Indian counterparts — coaches, athletes, founders, administrators. Four questions, two hours, no media. 

The delegation at the roundtable. Image supplied.

 New Zealand came in with real progress to share: a funding-linked mandate for 40% women on every sports board, a run of major women's tournaments — the FIFA Women's World Cup, the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup, the Rugby World Cup — all delivered within three years, all led by women CEOs, and a deliberately rebuilt female coaching pipeline at Hockey New Zealand. But they were just as candid about what hasn't worked: mandates that changed who was in the room without automatically changing who held power in it; broadcast numbers that still lag participation; a cultural discomfort, even in New Zealand, with celebrating its own winners. 

India brought something the delegation didn't fully expect — a comfort discussing female athlete physiology that New Zealand's system is still building toward, a policy seriousness about women in sport that many countries haven't reached yet, and an instinct for hero-making, visible in the WPL and in athletes like Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Jemimah Rodrigues, that can build an audience for women's sport from nothing when used deliberately.  

Delegates at Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai - Erin Roxburgh, Kirsten Kilmister & Kirsty Sharp.

 A pattern bigger than one visit 

This wasn't happening in isolation, though. Weeks before our roundtable, India and New Zealand signed a landmark Free Trade Agreement built on tariffs, market access and investment. As these deals usually are! But look closer and you will find it carrying the same instinct we felt over our interactions. The agreement includes a dedicated chapter on culture and traditional knowledge. India's Ayush systems of Ayurveda, yoga and the rest alongside Rongoā Māori, New Zealand's own traditional healing practices sat as equals in the same framework. Wellness and heritage negotiated in the same breath as trade. A signal that formal diplomacy is catching up to something, people-to-people relationships had already sensed. Our roundtable at AhemdabadAhmedabad, in that light was the same handshake at a different table. 

None of this closes the practical gaps between our two systems. India is still building governance, calendars, and pathways for girls in sport; New Zealand is still learning that policy mandates alone don't create power. Those conversations continue, counterpart to counterpart, board to board, the slow way real partnerships are actually built. 

Where this leaves women’s sport 

It is worth concluding where we started. Several Atua Wāhine. Countless Devis. Two nations that independently and centuries apart decided the same thing: that female strength deserved its own names, its own stories and a permanent place in how each culture understands itself. Every woman we work with in sport today, Indian or New Zealander, athlete or administrator – is, whether she knows it or not, still being carried by that older story. Our job on both sides of this reimagined corridor, is simply to keep telling it in a language, relevant enough for boardrooms and broadcast deals to hear it too. 

-Asia Media Centre

The roundtable.

The roundtable brought together a diverse group of leaders from New Zealand and India. The New Zealand delegation was led by Kirsty Sharp, Programme Manager, Asia New Zealand Foundation, and included Erin Roxburgh, Deputy Chair, Women in Sport Aotearoa, and Lecturer, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington; Kirsten Kilmister, National Development Manager, Athletics New Zealand; Mark Cameron, Chief Executive, Bowls New Zealand; Simon Brill, General Manager, High Performance, Hockey New Zealand; Steve Johns, Chief Executive, Swimming New Zealand; and Thomas Fox, Head of Commercial Development and Broadcast, New Zealand Cricket.

They were joined by Indian delegates Vaidehi Vaidya, Founder, Women in Sport India; Venika Parikh, National Swimmer; Felcina Miranda, Football Player and Coach, Gujarat State Player; Lavanya Sirsikar, Head of Department and Strength & Conditioning Coach, Vijayi Bharat Academy; Priyanka Dalal, Founder, High 5 Performance; Dhwani Kitchlu, Sports Consultant, former Adani Sportsline; Maana Patel, Olympian and Swimmer; and Nilesh Sadanand, Pavana Group.