India’s star opener Smriti Mandhana believes that with the depth that women’s cricket has reached in India, it is a suitable time to introduce a six-team women’s IPL. This could help improve the bench strength for the national side.
In an interview on Ravichandran Ashwin’s YouTube channel, Mandhana said, “There is a same number of states for men and women. So, when they started men’s IPL, there was the same number of states. But the quality went higher and higher as the years passed by.”
What IPL is today wasn’t the same 10 or 11 years back however, Mandhana thinks that it’s the same for women’s cricket as they have the same number of girls playing. She feels that the league could give women the right exposure required to improve their games.
“Introducing five-six teams would be a good decision instead of directly jumping to eight teams. However, what is needed first, is to start this change with five or six teams so that the number can progress to eight very soon. Until this change starts, Indian women won’t get the exposure to turn their cricket into a different level,” said Smriti Mandhana.
Mandhana also mentioned her experience at the Big Bash League which had led to an improvement in the bench strength of the Australian team.
“I played in Big Bash four years back and now the quality is very different. You can see that in Cricket Australia where they have 40-50 cricketers ready to play international cricket any day. So, I really want that to happen in Indian cricket. I think IPL will play a huge role in that.”
Loves all things female cricket