Kaur felt time is ripe for a full six-team Women's IPL.
July 31 of 2016 was a red-letter day in Indian Women's cricket for it was when Harmanpreet became the first Indian to be signed up for the T20 league.
"It made a lot of difference. I can say that there's a big difference in my mindset now and what it was before. I don't know why previously we used to look for our comfort zone - scoring as per our comfort - but Big Bash was a completely new experience for me, “Harmanpreet told Cricbuzz.
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"I had to go and play with different players who I don't know at all, and about whom I've not even heard about before. To stay with them for a month/month and a half, and play with them... because previously we'd played cricket amongst our people so you'd not think too much about you're out of home, how you are, etc. But to go there, to do everything by yourself from morning to night and to play cricket along with that, I've learnt a lot from that,” she added.
She singled out the change in her fitness and training regimen that WBBL brought. "We didn't give enough respect to time (here) - at what time you train, at what time you leave the ground, we don't do these things. So in the time period, we got (over there) to do everything, that was a different kind of pressure," Harmanpreet said.
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“In India, on days when you bat, you may follow it up with some running but you can't do gym because you'll have soreness. But in the Big Bash, in spite of doing all three things in a single day, I was fresh the next day. With that, the mind started getting different messages that I can do everything in a day, and made me think 'why do I keep waiting and saying I'll do this tomorrow or that day after?'. There's nothing like that," Harmanpreet said.
Apart from her Smriti Mandhana, Veda Krishnamurthy and Jemimah Rodrigues have also played in the WBBL and Harmanpreet feels a full six-team Women’s IPL should be the next logical step.
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"The things that we're learning at the age of 26, 27, they'll get to learn at 16. It's a huge 10-year gap. And then imagine what kind of a cricketer you'll become by the time you're 24-25. So I think it should be there. I believe we can have at least six teams. Despite making three teams in the Women's challenger trophy, I felt there were a lot of girls who deserved to play and could perform well, so we could've made three more good teams. It's not like we don't have talent," she said.
However, she conceded that one shouldn’t expect WIPL to have the same impact as IPL did in 2008.
"But if IPL starts or any such tournament starts, where there are six good teams including overseas players, then I think it'll be great for our domestic players. Because right now when a player goes from domestic to international level, there's a huge difference. For the first 10 games, she might not even be able to understand how to handle the pressure, and by then the selector might even decide on that player's career - on whether to keep or discard this player,” she signed off.