2017 will be remembered as one of the best years for women’s cricket.
Many revolutionary decisions were made this year like CA’s bold decision to give equal wages for both male and female cricketers, and the way the ICC promoted the 2017 edition of the women’s world cup.
The new hottest sensation in cricketing circles is the Women’s Big Bash League.
Indian Premier League, Ram Slam T20 challenge, Pakistan Super League, Caribbean Premier League, Bangladesh Premier League, NatWest T20 Blast and many more. These are all crowd-attracting, cash-rich leagues which are sponsored and are promoted in a big scale.
These leagues happen all over the calendar year but are exclusively for men’s cricket. Cricket Australia came up with a league to promote women’s cricket on a big margin.
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Women’s cricket was never considered a contemporary to men’s cricket. Women were not allowed to enter MCC, the home of cricket until 1999.
Even the Indian skipper Diana Edulji was prohibited from entering the Lord’s pavilion, so just imagine how big it would mean for the Indian team to play a world cup final at Lord’s. Women cricket has evolved very much from the last 20 years when players didn’t even had fixed contracts or were waged.
This is where there is a huge need for more leagues like WBBL to promote women’s cricket at the highest level.
The third edition of WBBL is creating records both on and off the field. Ashleigh Gardner’s fastest ton in the WBBL was third fastest in the Big Bash overall, while viewership is up by nearly 50 per cent.
The crowd came in big numbers of 8,000 to support their favourite sides. In the previous year the crowd was just averaging around 2,000 per week. Millions watched ‘The Sydney Derby’ clash between Sydney Thunder and Sydney Sixers, the former being the first WBBL champions and the latter being the defending champions.
What makes a T20 league even better is its star power and WBBL is not offering anything less there too.
They drafted many stars in every team to make it even more interesting. After a brilliant world cup, Chamari Atapattu became the first Sri Lankan to represent a side in WBBL. Apart from the overseas players, some big names like Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy, Alex Blackwell have been scoring tonnes of runs in the tournament.
By these tournaments, they also ensure they are giving chances to the upcoming stars and teenage prodigies in women’s cricket like Laura Wolvaardt and Lauren Cheatle.
For past few years, apart from cricketers, women commentators are also getting in the spotlight. Lisa Sthalekar, Mel Jones, Anjum Chopra, all have been doing well in the box. We also saw them commentating in the Indian Premier League. This will give more opportunities to women cricketers after they are done with serving the game.
Definitely leagues like this will influence many more girls to take up cricket and also will provide the beauty of women’s cricket for people who never experienced it.
WBBL and CA are setting an example to cricket boards all over the world to start more global leagues like this for women. They will be hoping more sports enthusiasts will come to sponsor these ventures like they do in men’s cricket.
Hopefully, those days won’t be so far when around 50,000 people will turn up for a women’s ODI match.
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