Why INDIA needs women IPL too ?? Yusuf Bhandarkar - The MMS

Mumbai Indians, PV Sindhu, Disney+ Hotstar, Dream11, and far more. the sole newsletter that deconstructs the business of sport from India. Someone sent you this? No - Here u go

This is the primary of a two-part series about the BCCI’s plans to line up a much-needed women’s Indian Premier League.

Australia and England faced one another within the final of the 2022 Women’s Cricket tourney on Sunday.

Not surprising within the least. They were the 2 best teams within the tournament—England lost its first three matches but fought back to win five during a row to cruise into the ultimate, while Australia remained undefeated throughout the tournament, winning the ultimate comprehensively by 71 runs. Australia and England are the 2 best teams within the world for an extended time—they have won 11 of the 12 Women’s World Cup tournaments since 1973. It’s a mirrored image of the robust structure, investment, and exposure that women’s cricket receives in both countries.

Meanwhile, 2017 edition finalists India had a roller-coaster of a tournament that saw them post their highest total in a very World Cup—317/8 against West Indies—as well as being bowled out for 134 against England. Mithali Raj’s team lost three of their first five matches—two of them due to tactical mistakes and, as Raj put it, a “lack of fight”—before beating Bangladesh by 110 runs. India then needed to beat African country to create it to the semifinals, but narrowly lost out. thanks to a no-ball.

It was a heartbreaking defeat, but their overall performance within the tournament made you wonder what this Indian team could have achieved had it received the maximum amount backing as Australia and England.

Perhaps that would change within the future. Today’s edition is that the first of a two-part series about the much-discussed and long-awaited plans to line up a women’s Indian Premier League.

Why India really needs a women’s IPL By now next year, we could have a women’s IPL. ‘Could’ is that the key word here, since the thought has been doing the rounds for over a decade. Yet, the closest thing we’ve seen to a women’s IPL up to now may be a Women’s T20 Challenge, comprising three teams and 4 matches, that has been held during the men’s IPL since 2018. The men’s IPL, as compared, has 10 teams and 74 games this season.

However, time period ago, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly provided the strongest indication yet that there can be a women’s IPL by 2023. Ganguly told reporters after the IPL governing council meeting that the women’s IPL should be approved during the BCCI’s annual general meeting, which they “plan to start out it by next year hopefully”.

Cricbuzz reported that the IPL governing council was encouraged by the sponsorship money the Women’s T20 Challenge attracted in 2020, when telco Reliance Jio had paid Rs 12 crore (US$1.5 million) for the title rights. Other companies like Dream11, Tata Motors, Unacademy, Paytm, and CEAT had also signed up as official sponsors. The Women’s T20 Challenge wasn't held last year thanks to Covid.

Rs 12 crore might not be much if you compare it to the Rs 300 crore (~US$40 million) per season that the Tata Group conglomerate is paying for the men’s IPL title rights. But it had been a start, nonetheless. According to reports, the BCCI is getting to have five or six teams within the inaugural edition of the women’s IPL. the ten men’s IPL franchises are going to be given the primary right of refusal to shop for the women’s teams. ESPNcricinfo reported that a minimum of four franchises have an interest in fixing a women’s team.

An IPL for girls is long overdue and it'd be very special when it happens. Women’s cricket has really developed over the years...If we are asked to possess a team, we'd be quite interested. I feel the league would be sustainable in addition. Punjab Kings co-owner Ness Wadia last week, to PTI The stakeholders of Indian cricket are making all the proper noises for a women’s IPL, but Snehal Pradhan isn’t celebrating yet. the previous India cricketer-turned-journalist, commentator, and online content creator has seen many false dawns when it involves women’s cricket.

“It’s a start, but it’s happened before that something has been announced then it doesn’t materialise,” she says. “So, I’m really keen to work out something concrete—like the announcement of dates, the teams involved, more information on exactly how things are visiting work…”

Pradhan is currently in New Zealand, where she’s a part of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) digital media team covering the 2022 Women’s tournament. On 27th March, she was at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, where India suffered a narrow, heartbreaking three-wicket defeat to African nation, which ended its chances of qualifying for the semifinals.

Pradhan is currently in New Zealand, where she’s part of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) digital media team covering the 2022 Women’s World Cup. On 27th March, she was at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, where India suffered a narrow, heartbreaking three-wicket defeat to South Africa, which ended its chances of qualifying for the semifinals. It wasn’t the first time India was so near, yet so far from glory on the biggest stage in women’s cricket. In the 2017 edition of the Women’s World Cup, India had lost to England by just nine runs in the final. This was after Harmanpreet Kaur’s masterful, unbeaten 171 off just 115 balls had powered India to a 36-run win over six-time champions Australia in the semifinals. India also reached the final of the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup, but suffered a heavy 85-run defeat to Australia. India’s wait for a major world title continues, but you could argue that those runs to the finals were the catalysts that led to the launch of the Women’s T20 Challenge in 2018 and, hopefully, a women’s IPL next year. However, as Pradhan wrote in a piece for Cricbuzz, a women’s IPL was “seriously plotted” as far back as 2010, starting with an exhibition match. Foreign boards were contacted to enquire about the availability of their women's players to fill the overseas slots. These boards replied positively, lending their support to this idea. So two XIs were drawn up, with four overseas players each. But the game never saw the light of day. Bubbling under the surface of the 2010 IPL was the controversy that would lead to [former IPL chairman] Lalit Modi's removal and eventual exile [after being accused of misconduct, indiscipline, and financial irregularities]. And a possible women's exhibition game was caught in the current and swept aside.

Women's IPL, Chapter 1: What if…, Cricbuzz Remember, 2010 was a good five years before Cricket Australia launched the Women’s Big Bash League, an IPL-like domestic T20 tournament. England followed suit with the Women’s Cricket Super League in 2016, which was replaced by The Hundred, a 100-ball cricket tournament featuring men’s and women’s teams, in 2021. Even the Caribbean Premier League has announced that a full-fledged women’s CPL will take place alongside the men’s tournament this year. The BCCI is playing catch-up, after having pioneered the franchise-based T20 tournament model with the men’s IPL in 2008. It makes you wonder: would those results in the World Cup finals in 2017 and 2020, and the match against South Africa last month, have gone the other way had a women’s IPL launched earlier. Australia has won five of the last six Women’s T20 World Cups. We’ve had a really successful Women’s Big Bash League, and the Kia Super League went really well, now into The Hundred—there’s sort of some thriving domestic competitions [around the world], so to see the announcement of the [women’s] IPL, in particular, to be able to grow the game in India is unbelievable. It is such an untapped market, I feel, in the women’s game. With that many people, surely, they’re going to be unbeatable in sort of a 10-year time. They just really needed a sort of a leg-up in that domestic set-up to showcase what these amazing women can do, so it’s really exciting. Australia wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy, to ESPNcricinfo A women’s IPL would make a huge difference to women’s cricket in India. For one, it would provide a good source of income to dozens of uncapped cricketers around the country, who can barely sustain themselves playing domestic cricket.

Women cricketers only started getting paid for playing in domestic matches from 2006, when the BCCI took over the governance of women’s cricket from the erstwhile Women’s Cricket Association of India. From just Rs 2,500 (US$55 at the time) per day for a 50-over match and half of that for T20s, women cricketers playing for their states now get Rs 20,000 (US$260) per match day and Rs 10,000 (US$130) for T20s, along with a daily allowance when on tour. “Women only play one-day and T20 cricket largely, so the number of days of cricket per season is limited. If your team qualifies for the second round, you play nine-to-10 one-day matches and nine-to-10 T20s,” says Pradhan. If you consider 10 one-day matches and 10 T20s, that’s a total of just Rs 3 lakh (~US$4,000) for the entire season. And that’s only if you actually get to play the match, says Ragini Malhotra, head coach of the Delhi women’s team. “We have around 20-22 players in a squad, so if you’re not in the playing 11, you earn a lot less.” Ragini Malhotra, head coach, Delhi women’s team (Source: Ragini Malhotra)

This is still better than when Malhotra started playing for Delhi back in 1986, when she was in her first year of college. “When we used to play, we used to pay from our own pocket for travel and everything. And women only started playing in college and university, since there was no school cricket for girls at the time. Even today, every school doesn’t have a girls team.” Pradhan, who began her domestic career in 2000, had a similar story. A turning point in her career was getting a sports quota job in Western Railway in 2007, when she was still in college. This is because the Indian Railways is practically the only employer in women’s domestic cricket. “They provide you a salary, a permanent job, and financial security,” says Pradhan. “If you get injured and can’t play, you’re still getting money in your account, which is not the case with the state teams’ match fees.” Back when Pradhan was playing—she retired in 2015—a job with the Railways would pay anywhere between Rs 40,000-80,000 (US$650-1,300 at the time) per month depending on the position you joined at, which is in turn dependent on your level of education and sporting achievements. Snehal Pradhan (centre) with the Indian squad during the 2009 Women’s World Cup (Source: NAPARAZZI/Flickr/Creative Commons)This also leads to a pretty lopsided domestic structure, with the best women’s cricketers mostly playing for the Railways. Out of the 18-member India squad for the 2022 World Cup, including three standby players, eight are employed by Indian Railways, including captain Mithali Raj. However, this is changing now, says Pradhan.

The younger generation of players in the Indian team, like Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Varma, and Yastika Bhatia, have never been employed by the Railways. “They do not need the security of a Railways job because the Indian team pays so much.” The BCCI’s central contract structure has three annual pay grades for women: Rs 50 lakh (US$65,000), Rs 30 lakh (US$40,000), and Rs 10 lakh (US$13,000). The board only started awarding central contracts to women cricketers from 2015. Before that, even cricketers representing India were only paid on a per-match basis. In comparison, Cricket Australia’s average annual retainer for domestic players in the Women’s National Cricket League is A$40,829 (US$30,500). In the Women’s Big Bash, it’s A$24,179 (US$18,000). That’s apart from match fees. The BCCI’s current annual contract list has 19 women cricketers across the three pay grades. For everyone below this elite bracket, the Railways is basically the only option if you want job security for life and want to earn a livelihood playing cricket. “There are a few exceptions. In Odisha and Himachal Pradesh, for example, the state police has employed a few women cricketers,” says Pradhan.

India captain Mithali Raj is one of the many cricketers employed by Indian Railways (Source: Wikimedia Commons)A women’s IPL would help in terms of providing an alternate source of income for players who don’t have a job or aren’t contracted with the BCCI. Malhotra is hoping that Delhi gets a women’s IPL team so that her players get better opportunities. “Every next step is beneficial for the girls. This time, we had almost 120-130 girls come for the trials for the Delhi senior team. And everybody knew how to play. It’s not that they just turned up and didn’t know how to hold a bat. It was difficult to do the selection.” Malhotra adds that interest in the sport is growing among girls, especially after India’s run to the final in the 2017 Women’s World Cup. “Parents are now more willing to let their kids play. But we need to have the infrastructure—women’s academies, facilities closer to their homes… two-three academies per state. In Delhi, we have more than 100 cricket academies, but girls are not given that much focus.” This could all change with a women’s IPL, just like it did for the men.

Some of the men’s IPL franchises are already involved in activities that involve women’s cricket. Pre-Covid, Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals had organised inter-school tournaments featuring both girls and boys. Of course, a women’s IPL is a completely different ball game. While such a tournament is essential for the growth of women’s cricket, is it economically viable for the BCCI and the teams? What is the right model for a women’s IPL? That’s coming in part two of this series. Quick singles The BCCI has set a combined base price of Rs 32,890 crore (US$4.3 billion) for the media rights of the IPL’s next five-year cycle. The board is also rolling out four rights bundles, including a non-exclusive package:

Package A: India subcontinent TV rights; base price Rs 49 crore (US$6.4 million) per match.

Package B: India subcontinent digital rights; base price Rs 33 crore (US$4.4 million) per match.

Package C: India subcontinent digital rights for 18 matches (opening match, four playoffs, night games of double-headers): Rs 16 crore (US$2 million) per match.

Package D: Rest of the world TV and digital: Rs 3 crore (US$400,000) per match. [Cricbuzz]