CHENNAI: It is finally here. The day the Indian female cricketers, fans and people in the fraternity have waited for years is March 4, 2023. The date where it all begins. It all? The revolution that is Women’s Premier League.
One might ask is calling something that hasn’t begun revolution a bit much, a bit brave? It might be, but given the way, franchise-based T20 leagues have transformed the men’s game in the past decade, it surely is one. And before even it has begun, the WPL has already changed so many lives. For far too long female cricketers in the domestic circuit were getting to play 15 -20 white-ball matches at best with a match fee of Rs 20,000 per day.
On February 13, 2023, it all changed. Cricketers, who had to fight not just financial struggles, but also societal as they chose this sport as a career growing up, finally had their big day. Whether it is Anjali Sarvani or Amanjot Kaur or Minnu Mani, the list goes on — the money they got in the auction is the validation they got for their journeys up until this point.
However, but this tournament is more than just that. Ask Sneha Deepthi, who will be playing for Delhi Capitals, what it means to be the only Indian mother in WPL. In a chat with this daily last year, she spoke about her journey back to cricket after having a child and what she wants to accomplish.
To be precise, it is a platform for Indian cricketers to showcase their talents in front of a bigger audience, to share dressing rooms with global superstars for a month, watch them train, pick their brains and learn from them is going to be invaluable. Ask Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who has spoken on the impact overseas leagues had on her on several occasions.
In hindsight, this has come a few years too late. In fact, the idea of the exhibition match for women was floated around 2010 — it eventually happened only in 2018 — but with the off-field controversies, it was pushed back. That said, it is never too late to start a good thing. And as the tournament promo song goes, ‘Ye to bas shuruaat hai’ (this is just the beginning).