The Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) is the second Asian board to launch the Women’s competitive T20 league, just like its men’s version of the Indian Premier League. The first is Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to announce a PSL-like league for its women cricketers.
While the PCB has named its tournament The Women’s League, set to be played alongside PSL 8, the BCCI will run its league under the ‘Women’s IPL’ name. Both the women’s leagues will be played during the same course, which might make player availability an issue for two of them.
With the rising interest of women across the globe to play cricket, especially in Asian nations, the two boards are optimistic about the success of their respective leagues. Specifically, BCCI, with a broad audience and huge public, is willing to make Women’s IPL another cricket brand after men’s IPL.
Indian women cricketers Smriti Mandhana and Jemima Rodrigues have talked about the importance Women’s IPL will hold to empower sport among females providing them more opportunities to showcase their skills.
Mandhana, as quoted by NDTV, said,
“We have discussed that there’s a big gap between domestic and international cricket because even if you play well in domestic cricket and then suddenly play international games, you’re not able to understand what to do and how to do it,”
“All of the women’s cricket, I won’t say the Indian team or the domestic set-up. We keep talking about how it will increase the bench strength. But actually, the fact is that it’s going to help the domestic girls massively because that sort of experience in playing in leagues like this will get a lot of things sorted for women’s cricket,”
“Grassroot wise, and we have seen how the Big Bash and The Hundred have helped Australia and England respectively in their domestic set-up as well as other things,”
Indian batter Jemimah, while emphasizing the importance of the tournament, stated,
“So, I’m actually really happy, the Indian team will benefit a lot from the women’s IPL, but it’s also going to benefit a lot of domestic girls, which I’m looking forward to,”
“The women’s IPL is going to change a lot of things for women’s cricket in India. I think this is like the best platform for us now that we as an Indian team have been doing so well in all the major events like the World Cup, the Commonwealth,”
“This is just the right time for it to happen, and I’m sure that we are going to get so much more talent that’s going to come out from here. I am very sure that women’s cricket in India is all set to go to the next level after the women’s IPL,”
Apart from the Indians themselves, the foreign women cricketers are also excited to take part in the Women’s IPL, which will act as an additional practising venue.
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