By Avenash Ramzan
With female cricket gaining immense popularity and momentum over the past decade, the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) is looking to play its part in developing that aspect of the game in the Caribbean.
In an exclusive interview with News Room this week, Chief Executive Officer Pete Russell disclosed that plans are in the pipeline for a mini franchise based competition to be played alongside CPL, set to start in August and end in September.
“We trialed it in 2019 when we played two T10 games, but they were just exhibition games. Our plan this year is to have three franchise teams, and they will play in a smaller version of CPL right at the start of the tournament,” Russell told News Room Sport.
“We want to get that ball rolling. We want to get the women players into a franchise system, see what it’s like, get them integrated into the whole CPL experience.”
While he did not divulge the specifics about how the three franchises would be formulated, Russell said the competition would take on a round-robin format.
Should the tournament come to fruition, the likes of West Indies standouts Stafanie Taylor, Deandra Dottin, Hayley Matthews and Anisa Mohammed are set to feature prominently, while Guyanese Shemaine Campbelle, Cherry Ann-Fraser, Shabika Gajbani, Kaysia Shultz, Shenata Grimmond and Mandy Mangru could also get a chance to showcase their skills.
Already, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board are among the top nations that have taken step to have franchise based female T20 tournaments.
