Star Australia wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy has backed the BCCI’s plan of launching a Women’s IPL next year and said India can become unbeatable in 10 years owing to the franchise-based T20 league. Last week, the BCCI announced that it is planning to start the Women’s IPL by 2023, though the decision will need approval at its Annual General Meeting. The BCCI has proposed a six-team WIPL next year. “The announcement is pretty great. It’s exactly where we thought the women’s game needed to go. That was like the next step,” Healy was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
“We’ve had a really successful WBBL, and the Kia Super League went really well, now into the Hundred – there’s sort of some thriving domestic competitions, so to see the announcement of the IPL, in particular, to be able to grow the game in India is unbelievable.” The 32-year-old Healy, who hit a belligerent century against West Indies on Wednesday to take Australia into the ODI World Cup final, has long been an advocate of a WIPL.
She featured in the inaugural one-off exhibition game which was the precursor of the current four-match Women’s T20 Challenge, a competition which will also be held this year.
“It (India) is such an untapped market, I feel, in the women’s game.
“With that many people, surely, they’re going to be unbeatable in sort of a 10-year time. They just really needed a sort of a leg-up in that domestic set-up to showcase what these amazing women can do, so it’s really exciting.”
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Healy, and other Australians, have not participated in the T20 Challenge since its first edition in 2018. A last-minute stalemate between the BCCI and Cricket Australia led to the Australians missing out on the Indian tournament in 2019.
A clash in the scheduling with the WBBL the following year led to the Australians, who made up the largest contingent of overseas players in the inaugural edition of the T20 Challenge, missing out for a second straight time.
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