BCCI mulls to start women’s IPL by ’23

MUMBAI, March 25: The BCCI is planning to start the Women’s IPL by 2023, Board President Sourav Ganguly said on Friday while four exhibition games make a return this season after a one-year gap.
The BCCI, which has been criticised in the past for not starting the Women’s IPL, will need AGM’s approval to kickstart the league next season. The Board is planning to have five or six teams in the inaugural edition.
“It (the full-fledged women’s IPL) has to be approved by the AGM. We plan to start it by next year hopefully,” BCCI president Ganguly told reporters after the IPL Governing Council meeting here on Friday.
Ganguly had earlier said that Women’s IPL will be launched in 2023.
IPL chairman Brijesh Patel also made it clear that this season there will be four matches for the three women teams around men’s IPL play-offs.
“There will be four matches involving three teams around the time of the playoffs,” Patel said after the meeting.
With the second half of the IPL being shifted to the UAE due to the pandemic, the exhibitions games were not held last year. However, they were staged in the UAE in 2020 when IPL Trailblazers won the title.
According to Patel, there would be five or six teams in the Women’s IPL but again that would need approval of the General Body.
The most likely venue for the women’s exhibitions games is Pune. (PTI)