Women's Premier League

The Mumbai Indians also have other franchises.

Three of the five teams in the Women's Premier League, which is the top flight circuit for women's cricket in India, also share ownership with IPL teams.

So there are other franchises around the world.

The BCCI, which is the governing body that controls, owns, and operates the IPL, effectively controls the sport to a certain degree.

But is there cross-ownership here, Justin? Is it an entirely different structure? If you know, what does the women's IPL kind of look like and how does it fit?

So we touched on it briefly in our reporting just because three of the franchises share ownership.

So there's five teams in the Women's Premier League, if I recall, and three of them are owned by IPL teams.

And, you know, I worked on this with my colleague, Kurt Badenhausen.

The 37-year-old, whose last test was five years ago, was a surprise addition to Australia's squad.

New Zealand bowlers Rosemary Meir and Bree Illing have gone unsold in the WPL auction.

Amelia Kerr and Sophie Devine were retained by their respective teams from last season.

Koina na pūrungu, hakinikina, that's your sports news.

Yeah, so she's at least eight, nine years older than Smriti.

So you can see the next generation now will be brought through by Smriti, which with her track record of the WPL success she's had as well, then it doesn't seem like a daft appointment in any way.

But yeah, Harman, I love the fact that she's not retired and she's still going to play and try and influence the team and the game and stuff.

But she's just...

So they are fulfilling the terms of the FTP, but they're doing it in a kind of slightly haphazard way, I guess, because of the...

the way that the uh the champions trophy dates have fallen perhaps um also there's a little thing called wpl which we'll be talking about in a minute um in fact let's talk about that now actually because that's it sparked off quite a bit of debate on uh social media this week because effectively the ECB have kind of come out and they've addressed the clash with WPL kind of head-on, almost to, I think, get ahead of the messaging a little bit around this.

And they've actually said, we realise that there's a clash with the very end of WPL, the kind of final stages.

And currently there are three England players scheduled to play in WPL pending the auction in a few days' time.

So Nat Siverbrand, Lauren Bell and Sophie Eccleston are all going to be playing.

And what the ECB have said is that if their team gets to the final stages, then they'll be allowed to miss the matches, the T20s against Sri Lanka, in order to stay in India and finish off the WPL with their team.

And Crickinfo sort of have reported this and basically gone, it's pretty obvious what the reason is.

The ECB have realised that actually playing a 20 over franchise tournament in India right before a 20 over Champions Trophy competition in India.

And we learn a lot from that.

How much of an eye are you keeping on the WPL over there?

Yeah, a lot.

I think the WPL and the WBBL, they're the big three now and they all bring unique things.

I think the WPL is unique just purely for the scale of cricket in India.

And our players come back from that competition and talk about the atmosphere and the I guess the passion in the crowds there in those stadiums.

And yeah, it's amazing for the future of the game and particularly the women's game in that competition is really exciting as well.

of the WBBL.

Hello and welcome to Wisden Women's Cricket Weekly Podcast with me, Katia Whitney and Lauren Winfield-Hill.

The WPL auction is only a week away and we'll be asking why only two English players have put themselves up to go under the hammer.

With the increasing salaries on offer in the 100 and the WBBL, we'll be looking at where the WPL sits in the global women's franchise ecosystem.

We're also going to be looking at an interesting England women's A squad announcement.

And later on in the show, you'll be hearing an interview with two sisters who have started a cricket kit brand with kits designed specifically for women and girls.

Went as smooth as it could have done, I reckon.

Yeah, I mean, I think if you're describing a 24-hour flight with a one-year-old as smooth, then it's gone pretty well.

In cricket news this week, the WPL player auction list was announced.

And then by that time, it's the new year and we've got the Champions Trophy.

We've got the WPL.

No, you've got the Women's Under-19 World Cup first in January, which England have named their squad for.

Then we've got at the same time the WPL.

I think that's from the 14th of January off the top of my head.

And then in February, you've got the inaugural ICC Women's Champions Trophy in India.

I would love for it to be in the summer holidays so you can kind of tap into that market of young families and kids being able to come and watch.

But I think the January window is obviously taken by the WPL at the moment and that's probably not going to change.

So I guess it's for Australian cricket, trying to find a way and trying to, I guess, understand when probably people want to come and watch cricket.

I guess September, October is pretty tricky because people sometimes have the footy blues and they're probably not ready for cricket yet.

So whether that is into the December window, there's obviously so many moving parts because there's international cricket, there's availabilities.

So unfortunately, I don't have the answer and I don't know if people do at the moment, but it's certainly something that they're trying to work through to, I guess, find those answers.

You playing WPL, the Indian Premier League, the women's competition?

Yeah, I'll be going back.