BCCI considering staging the inaugural WIPL with 5 teams and 20 matches across 2 venues in early 2023 - Reports

The Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) is reportedly hoping to conduct the inaugural edition of the Women's Indian Premier League (WIPL) in March 2023. The tentative window is jammed between the Women's T20 World Cup 2023 and the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

According to a report from Cricbuzz, the BCCI is exploring the possibility of allowing franchises to field up to five overseas players in their playing XI. Out of those five players, up to four can be from ICC Full Member nations, with the remaining slot open for players from Associate nations.

In contrast, the IPL allows up to a maximum of four players in the team with no limitations on the inclusion of players from Full Member nations.

The report also mentions that BCCI is planning to sell the franchises either zone-wise or city-wise. It read:

"The board is also debating between two options of selling the IPL teams: Zone wise - North (Dharamsala/Jammu), South (Kochi/Vizag), Central (Indore/Nagpur/Raipur), East (Ranchi/Cuttack), North East (Guwahati) and West (Pune/Rajkot) - with matches held at non-IPL venues) and existing city-wise like with Men's IPL (Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata - with matches held at IPL venues)."

Prior to the notion of WIPL, women's cricket representation in the cash-rich league came in the form of the Women's T20 challenge, which was generally played out during the playoffs.

The pool of players was split across three teams, namely Velocity, Supernovas and Trailblazers.

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BCCI currently considering a caravan style itinerary similar to IPL 2021 for inaugural WIPL season

The five franchises, which have already garnered interest among existing IPL franchise owners, are slated to play each other five times in a round-robin format.

The team finishing atop the league stage will directly qualify for the final, while the second and third-placed sides are touted to play an Eliminator.

The outlined format will give rise to 20 fixtures in WIPL 2023, for which the BCCI are considering using two venues. The tournament will initially be set up at one venue before they switch up venues for the latter half of the season.

A similar itinerary was employed for the first-half of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 season. Teams were split into factions with the initial set of matches being played in Mumbai and Chennai.

However, the bio-bubble was breached midway through the campaign, forcing the tournament to be suspended. The second-half of the season had to be played in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) four months later.

Will the inaugural edition of the WIPL be a success? Let us know what you think.