Good and bad of BCCI’S women’s T20 series
After keeping quiet for a long time, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) came up with a volley of announcements in the last two days. Other than details of the Indian Premier League (IPL), guidelines for state associations on resumption of activities and amnesty for age cheats provided they confess, what stood out was a prominent mention of women’s cricket.
Like last year, the BCCI will organise a four-match T20 series alongside the IPL. For this long-neglected side of Indian cricket, this is big. Live on TV and sharing space with the glam boys during the most followed cricket event in the country is a breakthrough moment indeed.
While the BCCI deserves credit for trying to take women’s cricket to prime time, there are questions about the manner in which this was done. The matches to be played in the UAE coincide with the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) in Australia.
This is arguably the biggest women’s franchise-based T20 league, featuring top players. Four Indians were expected to be part of it. This means the BCCI event will attract only Indians and foreigners who are not good enough to bag WBBL contracts.
The tournament in Australia will also suffer, in terms of missing exciting Indian players like Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana.
A body that has made the IPL the most lucrative destination for cricketers, the BCCI should have understood that the best way to market women’s cricket is showcasing the best product.
By creating this Women’s T20 Challenge without taking the Australian board into confidence and after the WBBL schedule was released, the BCCI made sure that both tournaments are devalued. Women’s cricket is not yet a saleable commodity in the subcontinent.
For it to become one, there can be no compromise on quality. When proposals came up to have the IPL without foreigners during uncertainty earlier this year, the franchises flagged it down, saying brand value will suffer.
The same logic applies to women’s cricket, probably more, given the smaller pool of women cricketers in India. For this version to thrive, marquee events have to coexist rather than collide. Hopefully, the most influential cricket board will realise this one day.