The inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) will begin in the first week of March 2023.
In an email to the five WPL franchises, the BCCI confirmed that the first season will be played entirely at two venues.
The BCCI chief executive officer Hemang Amin has also confirmed that the players’ auction will take place in Mumbai.
The auction is set to be held three days after the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup begins in South Africa on February 10, and New Zealand captain Sophie Devine described it as the “elephant in the room”.
“It’s a really unique experience. It’s enormous. You talk about glass ceilings and I think the WPL is going to be the next stage. I am really excited about it. As female cricketers, this is something we have never been through before. On every scale, it’s going to be awkward. That’s the word we have spoken about,” Devine said at the T20 World Cup captains’ press-conference last week.
A total of 22 games will be played in this year’s edition of WPL with the top-ranked team in the league stage qualifying directly for the final. The second and third placed teams will battle out to book a place for the summit clash.
On January 16, the BCCI announced that it had sold the WPL media rights to Viacom for INR 951 crore (USD 116.7 million approx.) for the five-year period i.e. 2023 to 2027; and on January 25, the Indian cricket board sold the five franchises for a total of INR 4669.99 crore (USD 572.78 million approx).
- Dates for WPL 2023: March 4 to 26
- Venues: Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai and DY Patil Sports Stadium, Navi Mumbai.
