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The best players of the Australia Women's National Cricket Team are likely to miss the domestic WNCL competition in 2026-27 due to the tight international schedule during the southern hemisphere summer.
In the previous season, a very limited number of top-tier women's cricketers participated in the domestic cricket tournament, WNCL, which is considered one of the best 50-over domestic leagues globally.
WNCL 2026-27 is likely to miss top talents of the nation
Compared to the previous year's WNCL, the number of Australia Women's national team cricketers is expected to be fewer in this year's edition. Last season, star international cricketers like Ellyse Perry, Annabel Sutherland, Sophie Molineux, Alana King and Tahlia McGrath played for their respective teams, while other top talents of Australia Women's such as Beth Mooney, Ash Gardner, Georgia Voll and Phoebe Litchfield opted to skip the competition.
Australia Women's cricket team and their players will have to travel a lot in the upcoming days because of the scheduled fixtures for the national cricket team and for the commitments to franchise leagues. The schedule of the 2026-27 WNCPL mostly overlaps with multiple other tournaments, where the national cricket team players will have to perform.
Australia Women's cricket team to feature in back-to-back international series
As there will be very little gap between the two assignments, cricketers will not be able to take part in domestic cricket. The Women's cricket team of Australia is scheduled to play against Bangladesh's women and New Zealand's women on tour for white-ball internationals in October before the Women's Premier League (WPL) in January next year.
In early February, the Australian National Cricket Team will have to prepare for the first Women's Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka. After the conclusion of the Champions Trophy, the team will return for a three-match ODI series against New Zealand in Australia at the start of March.
Cricket Australia reacts to a WNCL without many star attractions
Due to the compressed schedule, the Aussie stars are likely to miss the domestic tournament. Women's National Cricket League 2026-27 will be on September 29, with the final match on October 21. Additionally, the Australia A team is scheduled to tour India for a multi-format series during the initial round of the domestic tournament.
"Whilst technically there's maybe a day here and there, you look around, round five and WPL finals, if their teams didn't make the finals, there's an opportunity, but then they launch into a world event. As the years go by, it's becoming a little bit more like the men, where finding opportunities for them to compete in domestic cricket, where it used to be the norm and used to be unusual for them not to be playing, now it's probably the opposite that teams expect Australia's best XI team not to be playing", CA's head of scheduling Peter Roach said, as quoted by Cricinfo.
While the limited opportunities for the nation’s top talents in the domestic tournament can take away the star attraction from WNCL, from another point of view it shows sharp growth of Women’s cricket across the planet.
