The one-off women’s T20 exhibition match will be held on May 22 at Wankhede Stadium (Mumbai), ahead of the Qualifier 1 of IPL 2018. Today BCCI announced the captains of both side and also revealed their near future plans on women’s cricket.
It will be the Women’s T20 Challenge match between BCCI XI and IPL XI where Indian women’s cricket starts Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana will lead the sides. While BCCI will announce soon the full-member squads of both teams, they confirmed some big foreign names participation in that game.
While the Qualifier 1 of the IPL 2018 will begin at 19:00 IST (7:00 p.m. in local time), the women’s game has been scheduled to begin at 14:00 IST (2:00 p.m. in local time).
According to BCCI.tv, IPL chairman Mr. Rajeev Shukla said on that occasion, “Even as IPL continues to roll like a well-oiled machine, over the last couple of weeks, efforts were made to put in place a similar structure for women cricketers. We were in talks with several Boards and I am pleased with the outcome. White Ferns captain Suzie Bates, attacking batter Sophie Devine, who holds the record for fastest half-century in women’s T20Is, Australia’s fine all-rounder Ellyse Perry, wicket-keeper bat Alyssa Healy, Megan Schutt and Beth Mooney have confirmed their participation. Danni Wyatt and Daniel Hazell will add the English flavour. This special game will be played at Mumbai’s iconic Wankhede Stadium and will be telecast live in India and across the world”.
Meanwhile, former Indian women’s cricket team captain and the present member of Committee of Administrators (CoA) Diana Edulji mentioned that it is a small significant step towards a prospective women’s cricket league in the future.
She said on that, “We are excited to announce the first-of-its-kind exhibition match involving our women cricketers. BCCI has been pulling out all stops to promote and nurture women’s cricket and this is a small yet significant step towards a prospective league involving women’s stars in the future. The IPL is the biggest and most popular league in the world and it has been a long-time endeavour to have a women’s league that can match the exuberance of IPL. Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Veda Krishnamurthy among others rubbing shoulders with foreign stars will be a unique experience and something that we have not witnessed here in India.”
On the other hand, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) administrator Vinod Rai shows a positive sign of women’s IPL as he said that it could take place in two to three years.
He said on that, “We are planning to get a women’s IPL in place in two to three years.”
