Heather Knight is the latest cricketer to raise the voice after Ben Stokes, and Smriti Mandhana recently advocated for the need of Women’s IPL.
In last few months, there’s been a pleasant uproar amongst cricketers and fans for the development of Women’s Cricket. Alyssa Healy and Isabelle Westbury have continually fought for the Women’s game. Now the demand for Women’s IPL is magnified courtesy of more cricketers speaking up.
Heather Knight, the captain of England’s women’s cricket team, has joined Ben Stokes and Smriti Mandhana both of whom recently batted for the IPL for women. Knight said, “it would be amazing” for the women’s game.
Heather Knight has won the WBBL title for Sydney Thunder in last season and also has two Kia Super League titles to her name. She echoed the general sentiment saying that an IPL equivalent of these leagues would be great and appreciated Stokes for speaking up for the women’s game.
“It was awesome to see Stokesy talk about the women’s IPL. The more allies we have in women’s cricket, it really helps to change perceptions. It’s great from Ben to say that and I totally agree, I think it would be amazing for the women’s game to have an IPL.” Knight said, as per ESPNCricinfo.
“You’ve seen it in Australia with the Big Bash, and hopefully here with the Hundred having men’s and women’s competitions alongside each other, it’s a really positive thing for the women’s game and really helps to progress things. It was really nice to see Ben make those comments.”
England’s Ben Stokes, earlier this week, speaking ahead of the men’s IPL season, admitted that he would like to see full-fledged women’s franchises in the IPL. Stokes on Red Bull’s Decoding Athletes podcast said that the Women’s game had evolved enough to have its own IPL.
“Yes, I think the women’s game, especially over the last four to five years, has gone from strength to strength and it’s great how it is filtering into the men’s game in terms of [parallel] competitions and things like that. I’m very hopeful there’ll be a women’s franchise side associated with every men’s franchise side so we’re able to grow the women’s game even bigger. What better place to do it than out here in India?”
he said.
Since 2018, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has scheduled the Women’s T20 Challenge running alongside Men’s IPL playoffs. Initially, it featured two teams, later was expanded to three teams – Supernova, Trailblazers and Velocity. No dates have been confirmed yet for this year’s T20 Challenge tournament or whether it will go ahead considering the rising cases of Covid-19.
Trailblazers’ skipper Smriti Mandhana was also present on the Decoding Athletes podcast alongside Stokes and KL Rahul, and she agreed that it’s a perfect time to start the women’s IPL.
“I think the kind of performance last three-four years… IPL is all about youngsters and if you look at the current Indian team, the average age is around 23-24. That shows that there are a lot of youngsters coming in so IPL is definitely going to boost women’s cricket and give the confidence in youngsters which we’ve seen in men’s cricket. If we really want to grow women’s cricket, especially in India, it’s the right time to start the women’s IPL.”
Mandhana said.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has scrapped the Kia Super League T20 competition to introduce their much-anticipated league, The Hundred. ECB has given the women’s game a bigger platform than they had before. The inaugural season of The Hundred will get underway with a match between Oval Invincibles and Manchester Originals women’s teams at The Oval.
