The Board of Control for Cricket in India has revealed its initial plan for the women’s IPL. The window they have earmarked is March 3 to 26. The WIPL could start a week after the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup final, which is set to be played on February 26 in South Africa. The men’s IPL is likely to begin on April 1, with both tournaments to be played in India.
The board announced the media-rights tender for the first five seasons of the tournament on Friday, with the deadline for picking up the tender being December 31. The board has opted for the closed-bid process instead of an e-auction, unlike for the Indian Premier League earlier this year.
According to the plan BCCI shared with the state associations, the WIPL will be a five-team affair with a total of 22 matches. The teams will compete against each other twice in the league stage. The table topper will progress straight to the final while the second and third-placed teams will play an Eliminator.
As for the squad composition, each team can have up to 18 players, with a maximum of six overseas players. Each playing XI can include five overseas players – four from Full Member nations and one from an Associate.
As per the BCCI’s plan, they have drafted two plans for the teams to be sold. The first one being a set of cities based on zones – Dharamsala/Jammu from North zone, Pune/Rajkot from West zone, Indore/Nagpur/Raipur from Central zone, Ranchi/Cuttack from East, Kochi/Visakhapatnam from South and Guwahati from North-East zone.
The second shortlisted plan involves the teams being sold without a solid home base, with matches to be held at six shortlisted IPL venues: Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata.
The final step of the process will be assembling the squads. The BCCI is yet to decide on whether it will be done via a draft or an auction. Player availability could be an issue, with the women’s PSL likely to clash with the tournament.
