The precursor seasons of Women’s IPL and the Women’s League likely to clash:
After a long consideration, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the inaugural season of Women’s India Premier League.
Although the BCCI had been working on the plan for quite a long time now, the official announcement along with the proposed plan was made roughly a week after Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) released the news of the inaugural season of the Women’s League.
With the Women’s World cup set to be played in February next year, both leagues were expected to clash from the time when the news about the Women’s League was made public.
The BCCI has chosen the March window to hold the WIPL matches, which is the same time window the women’s league will be played in alongside PSL.
Although, the news of WIPL and the Women’s League, both, has earned acclamation globally but the clash of schedules of both leagues can be cause of some problems for overseas players, who will have to opt for one of the two leagues.
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Further, it can tone down the promotion and coverage of both leagues, dividing the viewership which is expected to be low already because of PSL being played in the same time frame as well.
The proposed plan, as sent to the state associations by the BCCI, comprises 22 matches in total with 5 teams competing in the tournament.
Each team is allowed to have a maximum of 5 overseas players, 4 from full member nations and 1 from associate countries. The plan further states that each team will play the others two times in the tournament.
The venues for the tournament will be only two this year, dividing the tournament into two legs. First leg will be played at one venue, the other at the next.
As mentioned by the BCCI in the paper, “It is suggested that the tournament can be played in caravan style, where after finishing ten matches at one venue, the next ten matches to be played at the next venue. Therefore, 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.”
