First edition of Women’s IPL to be played from March 3 to 26

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The inaugural edition of the Women’s IPL is set to take place from March 3 to March 26, after the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup which is scheduled for February 26th. Meanwhile, the 10-team IPL is to return to its home-and-away format that was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, while the BCCI is figuring out the availability of overseas players. The IPL’s end date is expected to lie at the end of May, before the commencement of an England-Ireland Test series at Lords from June 1 to 4. The second ICC World Test Championship Final will be held at the Oval a few days after that, while the Ashes are slated to begin from June 16.

The BCCI have also announced that it will open the bidding process for the media rights of the first five seasons of the Women’s IPL from 2023 to 2027, in January. The rights will be sold across the three categories of, television, digital, and a combination of the two, and the procedure will involve close-bidding rather than an e-auction. The overall plan for the WIPL has been shared by the BCCI and ratified at the Annual General Meeting, with the tournament set to include 5 teams. Each team is to have a maximum of 18 players, of which only 6 can be from overseas, while the 11 playing any game may have 5 overseas players. Player availability could prove to be tricky as the WIPL will clash with the inaugural season of the Women’s Pakistan Super League.

There are currently two plans for the WIPL. The first involves zonal teams, with a list of shortlisted cities per zone. These were Dharamshala/Jammu for the North Zone, Pune/Rajkot for the West Zone, Indore/Nagpur/Raipur for the Central Zone, Ranchi/Cuttack for East Zone, Kochi/Vishakhapatnam for South Zone and Guwahati for the North-East zone. Finally, the assembly of teams will be done by either auction or draft.