BCCI Plans to Organize Women's Exhibition T20 Game Ahead of Qualifier 1 in Mumbai

The BCCI is planning to organise a women’s T20 game ahead of Qualifier 1 in IPL 2018. The first qualifier will take place on May 22 in Mumbai.

The match will begin at 2:30 pm local time and will get broadcasted across the world. This is seen as a dry run to the idea of Women’s IPL in near future. Each team will have four foreign players in their starting XIs. It will help the concept of Women’s IPL to reach the broader audience.

CoA chief, Vinod Rai confirmed the same and told Indian Express,

“This is being staged as a well-deserved exhibition to showcase the tremendous depth and capability that women’s cricket in India has achieved. We see it build into a women’s IPL tournament in a couple of years.”

Both the BCCI and CoA are determined to make women cricket a priority in Indian cricket. The board are ambitious to push Indian women cricket to the pinnacle over the next few years. Last year, the women brigade made the nation proud by reaching the final of Women’s world cup. The game is expected to be inline with the current format of IPL.

“It will be on the lines of the IPL. Totally there will be ten foreign players and 20 Indian players across both teams. The Indian players will be picked by the national selection committee and the game, which will start at 2.30 pm, will be shown live,”  CoA member Diana Edulji said.

BCCI Aggressively Promoting Women Cricket

The BCCI is also in constant touch with other major cricketing boards in England, South Africa and Australia to finalise the names for the showpiece event.

This event will help the board to understand what can be done to improve the appeal to cricket audience across the world.

“The idea was to promote women’s cricket and keep the momentum going. This is just to start and show that we can have a women’s IPL from next season. It’s just a thought. The IPL GC have sanctioned this exhibition game, and now at least we will come to know the mood around women’s cricket,” she concluded.

Indian Premier League changed the way IPL cricket was played when it got introduced in 2008. The league had brought much needed financial stability to cricketers across the world. On the other hand, it unearthed the hidden talent across the country.

IPL unveils the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya who are vital cogs in Indian cricket team at the moment. Similarly, the board are hoping it could help Indian women cricket grow at tremendous pace and reach elite status amongst other bigger nations.