WPL: Start of a brand new period in ladies’s cricket

The worth of the Women’s Premier League in cricket’s ecosystem can’t be overstated. For previous warhorses, it’s an area for redemption. For younger Indian gamers, it’s a likelihood to rub shoulders with the very best and surge forward of their careers.

Australia’s Ellyse Perry calls it the “next frontier” in ladies’s cricket.

“I think it was always going to be the next frontier in women’s cricket, and it’s impossible to match the scale of the IPL anywhere else around the world…All of us feel so fortunate to be a part of such an event. I’ve played for a long time now and then to be here in India for this tournament, knowing there will be huge crowds… It’s just amazing. “There’s no limit to what this competition can do for women’s cricket in India. Just look at the level at which they are playing now…The players are very skilful and just need the opportunity now to go out and compete, get experience, and play in front of big crowds and on a big stage. So from that perspective, this time, it provides that platform,” says Perry.

WATCH – Ellyse Perry: WPL 2023 will make India a pressure to reckon with in worldwide cricket

One of Perry’s team-mates at Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is relishing the possibility to step on that platform. Just out of her teenagers, Shreyanka Patil doesn’t have the inhibitions a cricketer of her age would have. Two matches into her first huge league sport, and he or she is already getting observed. This wasn’t the case when she was excelling within the home circuit. “My aim even when I’m practising in the nets is to get the batter out, I especially love getting the big names like Ellyse Perry and Smriti Mandhana out, it’s so much fun,” she says.

Long awaited

Thirty-year-old Asha Shobhana Joy, too, went by way of the grind within the home circuit, ready for a very long time for ladies’s cricket to succeed in such a stage as in the present day. She has tears rolling down her cheeks as she tries to state what it means for her to be recognised through the WPL. Perhaps understandably, for it has been an extended wait. “I’ve been playing cricket for 16 years, picked so many wickets but still I’m only getting this recognition now, for so long nobody knew who I was. I can’t begin to explain how happy I am. This tournament will change so much for so many of us.”

Superstar: RCB’s Ellyse Perry performs a shot in a WPL sport towards Delhi Capitals. With six world titles in her kitty, Perry is among the many most completed gamers within the competitors. Now, she is relishing the chance to beat the “next frontier.”
| Photo Credit: Sportzpics for WPL

Joy made her debut for Kerala in home cricket at simply 14. Success for her didn’t come as early because it did for Ellyse and even Shreyanka. “I went on to play for the most competitive side in domestic cricket which was Railways. I don’t think many people know, but it takes so much work to make it to the good domestic teams. Our trials last for days.”

Joy is only one of a whole bunch of Indian ladies who aspired to make it as huge as their male counterparts, who prospered after the appearance of the IPL in 2008. It helped them match the requirements of worldwide cricket, simply as accelerator programmes within the enterprise world present mentorship and funding to allow an entrepreneur to take a giant leap. The IPL gave the likes of Hardik Pandya the fitting mentorship and publicity to show right into a match winner. That, in flip, helped the Indian males’s workforce.

Although it’s too early make a judgment, Shreyanka’s performances as an all-rounder to date within the WPL for RCB augur properly for her and the Indian ladies’s workforce’s future. “The young domestic talent in the team and right across the competition is just amazing. And those girls will forge their path in a really exciting time for women’s cricket.. and it’s going to mean that the Indian team on the world stage is going to be an amazing force to be reckoned with in years to come as well,” quips Ellyse.

All in all, the WPL, by lifting the requirements of girls’s cricket and making contributors family stars, is an thrilling new addition within the calendar of Indian cricket. Its therapeutic impacts shall be felt by ladies cricketers everywhere in the world.