India Women's cricket icon and ODI captain Mithali Raj on Thursday (March 26) urged the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to start staging Women's Indian Premier League (IPL) from 2021 at least on a smaller scale before gradually developing the WIPL in the country.
She further stressed that the BCCI should not “wait forever” to start the Women's IPL, saying we can start the tournament initially on a “smaller scale” in order to unearth talent.
The BCCI has been organizing the Women's T20 Challenge, which is known as Women’s IPL, since 2018 and this year the board had planned to organize a four-team tournament – which previously was a three-team event to run parallel to the men’s IPL playoffs, but now it is uncertain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mithali Raj told ESPNcricinfo: “I personally feel they should start a women's IPL by next year, even if it's on a slightly smaller scale and with some changes in rules, such as, say, have five to six foreign players in the first edition instead of four as is the case with the men's IPL.”
Well, India doesn’t have enough cricketers for a full-fledged Women’s IPL and the veteran batswoman admitted the same, but believes the tournament can still be organized if the existing franchises own teams to at least begin the process.
Read Also: Perry undergoes surgery after hurting hamstring during Women's T20 World Cup
She further explained: “I agree we don’t have the depth in the domestic pool yet, but the key is to get the existing franchises to form teams, even if (only) five or six of them are keen to begin the process because in any case, the BCCI was going to have four teams.
You cannot wait forever; you have to begin at some point, and gradually, year by year, you can keep evolving the league and then bring it down to four foreign players.”
Raj also backed the idea to introduce Indian teen sensation Shafali Verma, who impressed the world with her brilliant batting show in the T20 World Cup 2020, into the ODI cricket too.
She signed off by saying: “It’s not a bad idea to consider her for the ODIs. She is young but that should not be a criterion for not giving her opportunities in the ODI side.”
(With ESPNCricinfo Inputs)
