League for Delhi women cricketers likely to get underway next month

With the Women’s History Month being celebrated in March, and the Delhi leg of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) getting underway in the Capital from Tuesday, March 5, the time seems to be right for a women’s league, which the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) is planning to start in the second half of April.

The tournament, which will feature around ‘150 players’ divided into different teams, will offer a platform for women cricketers who have not had the opportunity to play local competitive cricket in the Capital.

“We have a pool of women cricketers. There are already around 50-60 women cricketers training at the High Performance Centre (HPC) for cricket (for both men and women) that we recently started in the Capital. Besides that, there will be other women players who have competed at different levels,” said Rajan Manchanda, the joint-secretary of DDCA. He said that the tournament will start after April 15 this year.

“We are also planning a league for the junior men’s cricketers along with that very soon. That may happen alongside the women’s league or just after that.”

It should be noted that while the campaigns of the various men’s teams ended on disappointing note with none of them, barring the senior team in Syed Mushtaq Ali T20, making the semi-finals, the performances of the women’s teams were impressive.

The under-15 and under-23 teams did well to reach the final and end runners-up in two tournaments whereas the senior team made it to the semi-finals in the Women’s One-Day Trophy.

Despite the good performances, there are only two players from Delhi in WPL teams – Shweta Sehrawat, who is a regular with UP Warriorz, and Laxmi Yadav, who hasn’t yet played any game for UP Warriorz.

“I think there should have been more players. However, since the players have performed well this season, which only ended recently, they will be taken into regard ahead of the next season,” said Deepti Dhyani, a former cricketer and also the coach of women’s under-23 team.

Meanwhile, the first match in the Delhi leg of the WPL will see Delhi Capitals Women taking on Mumbai Indians Women at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.

They will then play three more matches, against UP Warriorz, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Gujarat Giants.

Delhi Capitals lead the five-team points table with six points from four matches, Mumbai Indians Women are in second place.