The BCCI has decided that the Women’s IPL will have five teams for the inaugural edition of Women’s IPLS in 2023. The Board is thinking to bring five overseas players, four from full ICC members and 1 player from the associate nation that will build a Playing XI. The two venues and 20 league matches are going to be held by BCCI in March 2023 window after the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in February.
Right now, the Board has two options for selling the IPL teams zone wise
- North- Jammu/Dharamshala
- South- Kochi/Vizag
- Central- Indore/Nagpur/Raipur
- East- Ranchi/Cuttack
- West- Pine/Rajkot
The matches are set to be played in venues like Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and non-IPL stadiums as well.
All five teams are set to play against each other twice in the league stage. The top team of the league stage will qualify directly for the finals. The teams finishing at the second and third position will be playing the eliminator. One venue will host a few matches before the other.
“With the rise in popularity of women’s cricket in the country mainly due to prominent performances by the Indian Senior Cricket team on world stage by qualifying for semi-finals in 2018 T20 World Cup, finals in 2020 T20 World Cup, securing silver medal in recently held 2022 Commonwealth games in Birmingham, we intend to conduct the Women’s IPL on similar lines with the Indian Premier League,” the BCCI said on WIPL.
Women’s cricket took a big turn as they reached the final of the ODI World Cup in 2017 at the Lord’s ground but they got defeated by England. In the very next year, BCCO launched the Women’s T20 Challenge but it had just one match. In the next three years, it expanded to a three-team competition.
Recently, the popularity of Women’s cricket has increased and in no time they will be in the mainstream media. This led BCCI to grab this perfect opportunity to launch Women’s IPL.
Read more: Indian women’s cricket team defeated Thailand and entered the finals for the Women’s Asia Cup 2022
