WPL starts: Delhi Capitals captain Meg Lanning (L), Mumbai Indians captain Harmanpreet Kaur (2L), Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Smriti Mandhana (C), Gujarat Giants captain Beth Mooney (2R) and UP Warriors captain Alyssa Healy (Right) Gestures during the opening ceremony of the 2023 Women’s Premier League (WPL) at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on March 4, 2023. , Photo credit: Indranil Mukherjee
inaugural edition of Women’s Premier League (WPL) is the culmination of consistent T20I performances by women cricketers In recent years. In some T20 parameters, the performance of the Indian women has matched or nearly matched the Indian men’s team in recent years. So, the WPL is not just a token gesture to promote equal representation in cricket, but a hard-won battle to showcase talent.
Also, WPL is not an instant idea. This is the latest in a series of steps taken by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in the recent past. In 2018, the BCCI launched the Women’s T20 Challenge with two teams – Trailblazers and Supernovas, led by star Indian players Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur respectively. The tournament was expanded to three teams the following year. In October 2022, the BCCI issued a ‘Pay Equity Policy’ Raised match fees for its contracted women cricketers and to match the fees of their male counterparts.
The number of T20 games played by Indian women has also steadily increased over the years and peaked in the latest season. In the 2022-23 season, India has played the maximum number of 23 T20 International matches so far. chart 1 Plots the number of T20 International matches played by India and all the teams together. Both curves were on a near-vertical rise before COVID-19. After the peak-pandemic period, the increase has continued. Hence, the interest in the shorter format of the game has grown markedly.
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chart 2 Plots the season-wise number of T20I matches played by the selected teams on the vertical axis. For example, India has played 23 T20Is in the 2022-23 season, the most among all teams in a season (circled on top).
Chart 2 also shows T20I win % (wins/match) in selected teams season-wise on the horizontal axis. In the two seasons mentioned above – 2022-23 and 2019-20 – India’s winning percentages were 56% and 73% respectively. On the other hand, the Australian team has won 92% of the matches played in the 2022-23 season. England managed to win nine of the 10 matches they played in the same season. Given this, it was not surprising that several Australian and English players dominated the WPL auction.
Having said that, Indian women have been steadily improving their scoring rate in T20s over the years. chart 3 Shows the season-wise average runs per over (RPO) scored by the Indian women’s and men’s teams in T20Is. The gap in RPO between the men’s and women’s teams has been steadily narrowing. India’s RPO in women’s T20 matches has been above seven in the last four seasons.
A similar trend can be observed in the scored ranges as well. The gap in boundaries scored per match between the Indian men and women in T20Is is rapidly narrowing as shown in chart 4,
Moreover, the monetary compensation offered by WPL/IPL is certainly a morale booster, especially for Indian women. smriti mandhana auction price His was 580% more than the BCCI annual player contract, while in Viral Kohli’s case it was only 114% more as shown in the figure. Table 5,
The WPL has also helped revive the careers of relatively older players like Saika Ishaq, who currently tops the wicket charts in the tournament, though she is yet to make her India debut. It has also helped young players like Shafali Verma, who currently has the most number of sixes in the WPL, establish her dominance and cement her place in the Indian team.
vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in, rebecca.varghese@thehindu.co.in
Sources: ESPNcricinfo’s StatusGuru, Women’s Premier League website, Indian Premier League website, BCCI press release
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