The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in planning to make the inaugural edition of the Women’s Indian Premier League (WIPL) a five-team affair, according to reports in Cricbuzz. Earlier this year, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has confirmed the board’s intention of starting a women’s version of the IPL from 2023.
The tournament is expected to be played in March, and it is expected to conclude before the commencement of the men’s IPL Unlike the men’s version, where a team features four foreign players in the playing XI, WIPL teams are expected to have five overseas cricketers in their playing team. Among them, however, one player is likely to be from an associate nation.
Unlike the Women's T20 challenge, the precursor to the WIPL, where the teams were assembled randomly, the BCCI will sell the five franchises. However, unlike the men's IPL, where franchises bid for teams in a particular city, the BCCI has chalked out two plans for the WIPL. The first one comprises selling teams across six zones spanning the country. A set of cities in each zone has been shortlisted and comprises: Dharamsala/Jammu (North zone), Pune/Rajkot (West), Indore/Nagpur/Raipur (Central), Ranchi/Cuttack (East), Kochi/Visakhapatnam (South) and Guwahati (North-East). The second plan involves teams being sold but without a solid home base, with matches to be played at six shortlisted IPL venues: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.
