The Indian women’s cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur reiterated that a Women’s IPL is important for the development of young domestic cricketers in the country in order to help them prosper at the biggest stage.
Harmanpreet's comments came in the backdrop of India's loss to Australia in the final of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2022 cricket event. The Women in Blue came close to chasing down the total of 162 runs set by Australia. With Harmanpreet (65) and Jemimah Rodrigues (33) involved in a 96-run stand for the third wicket, India were at 118 for 2 in the 15th over, but slipped to 152-all out, losing another important final.
Sharing her thoughts on the same after the final, Harmanpreet told Sports Tak in an exclusive, “I think women’s IPL can be a big turning point for us. Our players do get opportunities to play overseas leagues. I feel domestic players will get a great platform in women’s IPL. We have talented women’s cricketers in the country but many of them don’t have the experience of the big stages. Women’s IPL will be a great platform for them.
Reports have suggested that the BCCI is going to launch a full-fledged women’s IPL by 2023. Board secretary Jay Shah said earlier in 2023 that the BCCI is committed to launching a women’s IPL next year.
‘Losing regular wickets cost us gold’
While admitting that winning silver is a major achievement for the women’s cricket team, she believes that losing wickets at regular intervals during the 162-run chase against eventual champions Australia cost them the Gold medal. “The Silver medal is a big achievement. This is the first time we participated in the Commonwealth Games and it’s a big achievement. We created a situation from where we could have won the match but the last 4-5overs didn’t go the way we expected it to.
But that’s the beauty of cricket - even if you think you’re in a good position, the game slips away from you. Today, it happened to us. Losing back-to-back wickets was the turning point. In that situation, if we had looked for singles and doubles other than looking for boundaries, we could have hit the big ones at the end with wickets in hand. We would have had less pressure. Runs came but we kept losing wickets at regular intervals,” Harmanpreet concluded.
