How Women’s Premier League is bound to change the Women’s game’s narrative for good!
Women’s Premier League is bound to change the Women’s game’s narrative: Imagine a dressing room where there’s a Dane van Niekerk along with an Ellyse Perry, Smriti Mandhana and a Sophie Devine!
Likewise, imagine the following players sharing a common green room prior and after a T20 league based match- Meg Lanning, Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma and Hayley Matthews.
In common vein, imagine a Bangalore based franchise side for the women’s T20 league in India that has Daniil Wyatt playing for it?
Did we ever imagine a West Indian, Indian and Aussie women’s cricketer sweating it out whilst adorning a common jersey; fighting it out for the common cause?
Things that, truth be told, seemed a touch inconceivable over a decade back in the day in the women’s game have thanks to the inception of the women’s IPL, gathered steam. And very soon they’ll be coming true. And for good measure.
Few sports out there bind an individual as closely to the country and to the purpose of uplifting the spirit of the game as cricket does. And that, in all likelihood, isn’t going to change.
Just that you’ll see Women cricketers going all out in the name of the sport for their respective franchises the way they’ve been pushing the envelope of excellence for their respective countries.
As a matter of fact, with the coming up of the much anticipated Women’s IPL, rightly titled the “Women’s Premier League,” women’s cricket will actually be marking a bold new chapter in the sport that up to this point, remained eternally skewed to the male gender.
But that, as one would note, was a thing that belonged to the past. The contemporary version of the sport that has as much space for a PowerPlay as it has for Mankading has seen women rising to the fore.
Today you don’t only flog to stadia around the world to just root for a Steven Smith, Chris Gayle, Hetmyer, KL Rahul or Babar Azam alone; you cannot simply imagine the modern firmament of the international game without a Perry, Verma, Mandhana, Gajnabi, Richa, Rodriguez or Sutherland.
All are important and all together make cricket what it truly is; a sport about camaraderie and a sport that runs high on the instinct for domination.
And speaking of domination, few leagues have captured the modern fan’s psyche as much and as intricately as the Indian Premier League.
Now, gladly, gone are the days where one had to raise a voice of coherence and reason to espouse the cause for a similar league for the women folk.
They’re going to have one of their own as well and not long from now.
The following is what BCCI’s current president had to say on the subject of the Women’s Premier League, contest that’ll change for good how one perceives and consumes the sport.
“I congratulate the winners for making successful bids to own WPL teams. The league will give players from India and abroad a chance to learn and grow together. It will pave the way for development at the grassroots level with the inclusion of more women cricketers.”
I would also like to congratulate the BCCI team for the smooth execution of the auction process. I’m confident that the league will help our women cricketers shine on the global stage.
