IPL 2022: IPL men’s tournament is expanding, what about women’s IPL?

Indian Premier League is one of the best T20i league around the globe, which was first played in 2008, the year after India lifted the first ever T20i World Cup. Since then IPL has gone through many ups and downs but it never failed to entertain the world. Recently during the Press Conference, Usman khawaja said when asked which one is the better league IPL or PSL.

“IPL is the strongest in the world. That’s hands down. That’s not really a contest there (between IPL and PSL) because at the end of the day they have all the world comes to them and they also have the only league in the world that has Indian cricketers. So, it ends up becoming the best league in the world,” said Khawaja while interacting to media in Pakistan ahead of Australia’s first Test against the hosts in Rawalpindi.

IPL has fully entertained the world since the very beginning, but the IPL is only expanding for the male cricketer’s but not for female cricketers. Since the very beginning IPL was all about male athletes but in 2018 the BCCI inaugurated the first ever season of women’s IPL by the name of Women’s T20 Challenger with only 3 teams in a season.  

No doubt, IPL is the best league around the world, but now it’s time to boost up Women’s T20 Challenger and create something big like IPL so that it can produce more female athletes in the country.

The BCCI is likely to take a call on conducting women’s IPL from next year. BCCI president Sourav Ganguly expressed his intentions regarding conducting the women’s IPL at a bigger level and agendas would be discussed in the upcoming board meetings

 “The matter will be discussed in the governing council and a plan of action will be decided,” a BCCI official was quoted as saying.  

If BCCI wants to make women’s cricket as popular as men’s cricket then it’s important that the BCCI should make a call regarding hosting women’s IPL on a bigger scale which will not only produce more female cricketers. However, it will give a chance to younger girls to start taking cricket as a profession.

In last few years India has generated a few female cricketers but the number of female cricketers in India is not that big. BCCI should think about hosting women’s IPL every year with at least six taking part in the tournament, not only Women’s IPL but also at least 2 domestic women’s tournament for them to nourish them to play at national level.

According to a report by Sportstar, the Indian Cricket Board is planning to host the Women’s T20 Challenge in May, with three or four teams taking part in the tournament.

“The BCCI is serious about hosting a full-fledged IPL within a year or so, and keeping that in mind, the efforts are on to put together everything so that we have a smooth sailing. The governing council will discuss all the aspects in the meeting and then take a call on the road ahead,” a source was quoted as saying by Sportstar.

Apart from the women’s IPL, the BCCI will also discuss the tender process for their media rights for the next IPL cycle (2023-2027).