CHENNAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India has come up with a proposal to host the long-awaited women’s IPL in March 2023 with five teams and 22 matches. The inaugural edition and the two following seasons will feature 18 players in each team including six overseas players.
The WIPL has been included as item X in the BCCI’s annual general body meeting set to take place in Mumbai on October 18. Ahead of the AGM, in a letter sent to all state units – accessed by this daily – the BCCI stated, “With the rise in popularity of women’s cricket in the country mainly due to prominent performances by the Indian senior cricket team on the world stage by qualifying for semifinals in 2018 T20 World Cup, finals in 2020 T20 World Cup, securing a 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.”
Since the conclusion of the last IPL, the BCCI has been conducting a thorough study of the market and after contemplating whether to play the tournament in a five-team format or six, it has locked the former for the first three seasons.
“To have a good balance of domestic & international players and to have competitive teams, it has been tentatively decided to have five teams for WIPL. Each team can comprise a maximum of eighteen players whereas no team can have more than six overseas players. Further, no more than five overseas players — four from Full Members of the ICC and one from the Associate Members of the ICC can be part of the playing XI of each team,” the BCCI note read.
And unlike the IPL, which is played in a home and away format, the BCCI has suggested two options. One is to sell five teams based on the six zones that exist in the BCCI. Each zone has been allotted cities to pick from: North (Dharamsala/Jammu), West (Pune, Rajkot), Central (Indore, Nagpur, Raipur), East (Ranchi, Cuttack), South (Kochi, Vizag), North East (Guwahati).
Although there are six zones from which bidders can pick five, in future this zonal format would allow only one more team to be added. The other option is to sell teams without any home base with the matches to be played in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata. It is understood that the BCCI has included the second option as several IPL franchises are showing interest to own a team in the women’s tournament. And if needed, they can play matches in any of the cities included in the first plan.
The BCCI will employ a caravan format where two venues will host 10 matches each season. “Ten matches each to be played across two venues in the 2023 WIPL season, ten each in the next two venues in the 2024 season, and for the 2025 season ten matches in the remaining one venue and the remaining ten in one of the venues from 2023 season.”