Flashback To The Inaugural Edition Of Women's Premier League (WPL 2023)

WPL 2023 Flashback - A look in to the first edition of Women's Premier League that took place in 2023 with five teams taking part in the inaugural season.

WPL 2023 Flashback (Image Source: Google)

After the immense success of the Indian Premier League, every cricket-playing nation introduced their own T20 league over time, which took the cricket world by storm. The Board of Control in Cricket in India (BCCI) took it to another level when they introduced a franchise league for women's cricket in 2022 called the Women's Premier League (WPL). The first edition of the WPL took place in 2023, with five teams taking part in the inaugural season.

The blueprint of the WPL started back in 2022, when then BCCI president Sourav Ganguly promised to introduce a league that is likely to be a women's version of the IPL to replace the Women's T20 Challenge. And it ended up being one of the biggest women's cricket tournaments. Top names in women's cricket joined the league through auction, and it became a grand success.

WPL: Women's Premier League Inaugural Season

The inaugural season of the WPL had five teams competing with each other. The competition was played under the same structure as the IPL. There was an auction held ahead of the start of the tournament, which saw some of the biggest buys ever recorded in women's cricket history. Indian batting sensation Smriti Mandhana bagged an amount of INR 3.4 crore. Meanwhile, Australian star Ashleigh Gardner was the second-costliest player, with a deal worth INR 3.2 crore from the Gujarat Giants. There were 22 matches in the inaugural season, and all those games took place at Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai and DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.

The Women's Premier League (WPL) 2024 will be the second season of the tournament and it starts on February 23.

WPL 2023: Teams and Captains in the Tournament

• Delhi Capitals: Meg Lanning (c)
• Gujarat Giants: Beth Mooney (c)
• Mumbai Indians: Harmanpreet Kaur (c)
• Royal Challengers Bangalore: Smriti Mandhana (c)
• UP Warriorz, Alyssa Healy

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