One of the leading ladies of international cricket and Kiwi superstar Hayley Jensen and her fellow athlete from Down Under, Nicola Hancock decided to make their cricketing partnership last a lifetime, as the couple tie the knot last weekend.

Having been teammates for two straight seasons for Australia's Big Bash League franchise, Melbourne Stars, the couple saw a lot of individual success in the T20 league.

While Jensen, an all-rounder, won the prestigious Una Paisley medal for being Victoria Women's Premier Cricket league's best player of the 2017-18 season, Hancock finished the latest season of the BBL as her squad's second-highest wicket-taker with 13 scalps in 14 games with an average of 19.92.

The official news of the wedding was broken online by Hancock's team last evening:

From #TeamGreen, congratulations to Stars bowler Nicola Hancock who married her partner Hayley Jensen last weekend! ðpic.twitter.com/QvWb7Ue0Qx

— Melbourne Stars (@StarsBBL) April 18, 2019

"From #TeamGreen, congratulations to Stars bowler Nicola Hancock who married her partner Hayley Jensen last weekend!" the picture was captioned.

Australia legalised same-*** marriage in December 2017 while New Zealand granted it the royal assent way back in 2013.

However, as soon as the wedding pictures were available online, homophobia took over with the blink of an eye and flooded the team's twitter handle with slurs demeaning same-*** marriage:

It isn't ryt

— NITESH KUMAR (@nkojha9060) April 19, 2019

Challenge to Natural law

— Kapil Kumar (@KapilKu03594795) April 19, 2019

Oh no
It is unnatural marrige
I think human is very beg animals

— बà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¤à¤¾à¤° मà¥à¥à¤®à¥à¤®à¤¿à¤² फारà¥à¤à¥ (@MuzzammilFar) April 19, 2019

What a great indecent choice this sodomy women make to defile themselves

— Joshua (@Joshua3059) April 18, 2019

If all girls will marry to each other then what will happen with boys or u can say who will marry with boys. I think this is unnatural.

— kmljee (@kmljee) April 18, 2019

Pls  stop these kind of activities this is uncertain and not good for the society

— JSP Tarak (@TDPTARAK) April 19, 2019

Cricket is meant to be a gentleman's game,, what happened to the world???????

— Samiullah Saifi (@Samiull91563821) April 18, 2019

One common response to such homophobia is that it is the part of the society and that homosexual people have to be mentally strong enough to make such a decision and face the society with their heads held high, but why?

Maybe that is the question that needs to be answered now. With the LGBTQ community being welcomed into society with open arms, why is it that marriage, a gesture to celebrate love, needs for the people involved to “prepare themselves”? Do straight couples need to worry about the kind of criticism that they might face from society after they get married?

Sure, homosexuality has become a part of the world that we live in and sure people now have the right to identify themselves as “gay”, but normalising it, in our mundane lives, is something that continues to be our "to-do” list