Star India opener Smriti Mandhana firmly believes that the country has enough depth for a six-team women’s debut in cricket. IPL, which can help in improving the bench strength for the national side.
The 25-year-old stylish batsman said the quality of domestic players has improved in the men’s game since the advent of the Twenty20 league and the same could be the case with women’s cricket.
“There are equal number of states for men and women. So, when they started the men’s IPL, there were an equal number of states. But as the years passed the quality got higher and higher,” Madhana said on Ravichandran Ashwin’s YouTube channel.
“The IPL that is there today is not what it was 10 or 11 years ago. I think it is the same for women’s cricket. We have the same number of girls playing cricket.
“For now, I think we’ll have a good five or six teams to start with and probably grow to eight teams in a year or two. But until we start, we don’t know.”
Mandhana feels that the league can give women the right kind of exposure which is needed to improve their game.
“Five-six teams, it is good to go with us. But eight teams, I’m still not sure what that would look like. But I think we really need to start with five or six teams so that we can get to eight teams really soon.
“I think until we start, we are not risking our girls to take their cricket to a different level,” she added.
Mandhan said that the Women’s Big Bash League has improved the Australian team’s bench strength, which can be replicated with the Women’s IPL in India.
“I played in Big Bash four years ago and now the quality is very different. You can see that in Cricket Australia where 40-50 cricketers are ready to play international cricket on any given day.
“So, I really want that to happen in Indian cricket. I think IPL will play a huge role in this.”
Currently BCCI hosts a Women’s T20 Challenge consisting of three teams – Trailblazers, Supernovas and Velocity.
get all IPL news and cricket score Here
.