The women’s Indian Premier League looks set for a launch in March 2023, with the BCCI earmarking that as the most likely window for the competition expected to transform the female game in the country.
In perhaps the most concrete reflection of the process underway to unveil the first-ever WIPL, the BCCI has tweaked the women’s domestic calendar and will be starting it a month earlier in the winter to accommodate a full-fledged T20 league by the end of it.
Traditionally beginning in November and lasting up to April, the women’s domestic calendar will now kick off in October and end in February at the heels of the inaugural WIPL. The season will start with the senior women’s T20 trophy on October 11 and conclude with the senior women’s inter-zonal one-day competition that runs from February 12 to 19.
There is no official announcement yet, but ESPNcricinfo reported that the gap in the calendar in March will be filled by the WIPL, which is a piece of exciting news for fans of the Indian women’s team who have been calling out for a league of their own for quite some time now.
The BCCI has been organising an exhibition T20 tournament for Indian women’s players alongside available overseas stars since 2018, with the exception of the year 2021 when the competition was cancelled amid Covid-19 pandemic. Initially hosted as a single-match event, the exhibition comp has expanded to a three-team single round-robin tournament over time and has been considered a precursor to a full-fledged league.
The voices for a proper WIPL have only grown stronger in the last five years, where the Indian women’s team have backed their runners-up finish at the 2017 ODI World Cup in the UK by reaching the finals of the 2020 T20 World Cup and Commonwealth Games T20I earlier this month.
India’s inspirational run to the summit clash of these multi-team events showcases the rapid progress that the side has made despite a lopsided Railways-dominated domestic structure. But the team’s failure to cross the final hurdle at each of these events has also highlighted a number of areas they still have to improve upon, including the ability to handle the pressure and hold their temperament at the biggest stage.
Like with the men’s game, playing in front of healthy crowds and rubbing shoulders with the best players while learning their trade from the world’s most astute coaches is deemed to be the surest possible means for Indian women’s players to bridge those gaps in their respective games over time.
The Indian domestic set-up doesn’t provide them that opportunity. But the WIPL is expected to enable their growth, strengthen the talent pipeline and help the senior team inch closer to top sides like Australia, who continue to dominate international cricket owing to a cut-throat domestic structure, backed up by a full-fledged WBBL and well-paid contract deals.
The first hint towards a WIPL being launched in 2023 was given by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly in February.
“We are at the level of formulation to have a full-fledged WIPL. It is certainly going to happen. I strongly believe that next year i.e. 2023 will be a very good time to start a full-fledged women’s IPL which will be as big and grand a success as men’s IPL,”
he had told PTI.
The WIPL may feature five or six teams in its inaugural edition, as board secretary Jay Shah had indicated earlier this year. He had also said multiple existing IPL franchises have enquired over the possibility of them also owning a WIPL franchise. It remains to be seen if the BCCI will offer them the first right to refusal at the selling stage of each WIPL side.
