The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Friday, decided to invite bids for the media rights of the Women’s IPL, for the five-year cycle from 2023-2027.
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The Invitation to Tender (ITT) will be available for purchase till December 31 this year on receipt of payment of a non-refundable fee of INR 5,00,000 (exclusive of GST), and includes all the relevant terms and conditions.
The conduction of the Women’s IPL has been a talking point for quite a few years now, especially since team India finished as runners-up during the 2017 ODI World Cup and then in the 2020 T20 World Cup. Also, with the successful organization of the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), and more recently The Women’s Hundred in England, it made very little sense to the fans as to what was stopping the world’s richest Cricket Board to respond to requests of India’s own premier women’s T20 league.
With several of the men’s IPL franchise owners having shown keen interest in owning the women’s team in league as well, the time has almost arrived for the inaugural season, set to begin in March 2023.
Women’s IPL 2023 start date
As per ESPNCricinfo, the first season of Women’s IPL is most likely to take place from March 3, with the grand finale to take place on March 26, just five days before the likely start of the 16th season of the men’s IPL, on April 1.
As per the report, while the BCCI has not yet come up with the official window for the maiden season, it is highly to commence a week after the final of the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa, scheduled to take place on February 26 in Cape Town.
Women IPL teams
The Women’s IPL 2023 will be a five-team tournament, with each team playing against each other twice over in the league stage. Akin the WBBL this year, the table-topper after the end of the league stage will automatically book their berth in the grand finale, while the second and third placed teams will face each other in the eliminator.
Also, each squad will comprise a maximum of 18 players, with not more than 6 overseas players. The playing XI can feature maximum of five overseas players, including one from an associate nation.
The teams will either be sold across the six zones in India – Dharamsala/Jammu (North zone), Pune/Rajkot (West), Indore/Nagpur/Raipur (Central), Ranchi/Cuttack (East), Kochi/Visakhapatnam (South) and Guwahati (North-East), are reportedly the cities shortlisted by the BCCI, or without a home base with matches to take place across six different venues in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.
