The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is said to be planning a revival of women’s domestic red-ball cricket in India, marking the first time since 2018.
The Indian Express reports that the tournament is scheduled for March-April, following the Women’s Premier League. It is expected to follow a zonal format similar to the men’s Duleep Trophy, with matches lasting three days due to time constraints. The final is anticipated to be a four-day event.
“It will be a three-day tournament to start with. Due to the constraints of time, we are thinking of starting with zonal format initially. The tournament will be concluded in the month of March-April.”
”We don’t have red ball cricket for the women’s team (currently) and the BCCI felt it’s time to start day’s cricket as well as domestic cricket for women,” a BCCI official told the newspaper.
The BCCI is reportedly planning to transition to a Ranji Trophy-style inter-state tournament for women’s red-ball cricket. Statistician John Leather highlighted that India had 10 inter-zonal matches per season from 2014-15 to 2017-18.
If implemented, India would be among the few countries hosting such a red-ball tournament, as it is uncommon even in Australia and England due to the rarity of Tests in women’s cricket. Similar to India, most countries predominantly organize white-ball tournaments for women.
Harmanpreet Kaur, the India captain, expressed support for domestic red-ball cricket
The competition has received approval from Captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who had urged the BCCI to introduce first-class tournaments for women to enhance their skills for the longest format. She made this request last year ahead of a one-off Test against England.
“A Test championship is a call for ICC and Boards to take,” Harmanpreet said at that time. “There needs to be more Test matches, according to me, even at the domestic level. This would help us improve our skills as cricketers because we play a lot of short-format cricket at the moment.”
“Maybe that means a lot of skills are not there to be seen, for bowlers it is mostly defensive bowling. For developing more skills for aggressive bowling, it’s a little bit missing because we don’t play many Tests. More domestic Test cricket will help improve our skills that will help in shorter formats too”
Following her remarks, Harmanpreet Kaur’s team secured victories against England and Australia in one Test each, despite facing challenges in the white-ball series.
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