Women's Indian Premier League likely to commence in March 2023

Ever since the Indian Premier League (IPL)'s success in its inaugural season in 2008, chatter around a possible franchise-based Women's T20 tournament has been going the rounds.

With the Indian Women's team having success on the international stage over the years, calls for a Women's IPL (WIPL) have grown rapidly as well. Seeing this interest in women's cricket, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is all geared up to start the event in March 2023.

According to a report in The New Indian Express, the BCCI has identified two windows for the T20 competition: March and September.

The recently conducted Women's T20 Challenge in Pune witnessed decent crowds that assured the BCCI even more to start the WIPL. The final between winners Supernovas and Velocity at the MCA Stadium raked in 8,621 people on a Saturday.

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah recently announced that a franchise-based tournament for women will start soon. In addition, Shah said that the board is looking forward to auctioning broadcasting rights for the WIPL.

The BCCI have had meetings with other governing bodies like Cricket Australia (CA) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to plan a proposal to the International Cricket Council about allowing a separate window for the league next year.

With the BBL, The Hundred and Caribbean Premier League (CPL) transpiring between July and November, and with players from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa busy with international commitments, March seems to be the most viable option for the BCCI.

The proposed league is likely to start off with six teams initially, with many franchise owners from the IPL also expressing interest in buying teams here as well.

Since the Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Mumbai Indians (MI), the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), and the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have shown interest in buying a team. CSK recently opened up a cricket academy for girls.