Mumbai: Indian opener Smriti Mandhana firmly believes that cricket in the country has enough depth for the introduction of a six-team women's IPL, which can further help in improving the bench strength for the national side.
The T20I vice captain Mandhana said that this is the right time for the women’s Indian Premier League (IPL), if the game needs to improve in the country.
Smriti Mandhana firmly believes that cricket in the country has enough depth for the introduction of a six-team women's IPL, which can further help in improving the bench strength for the national side.
"Five-six teams, we are good to go with. But eight teams, I am still not sure how it will look like. But I think we really need to start with five or six teams so that we can actually get to eight teams very soon.," Madhana said on Ravichandran Ashwin's YouTube channel.
“I think till we don't start, we are not giving exposure to our girls to turn their cricket into a really different level," she said.
Mandhana said the women's Big Bash League has led to an improvement in the bench strength of the Australian team, something which can be replicated in India with the women's IPL.
"I played in Big Bash four years back and now the quality is very different. You can see that in Cricket Australia where they have 40-50 cricketers ready to play international cricket any day.
"So, I really want that to happen in Indian cricket. I think IPL will play a huge role in that," Mandhana added.
Mandhana captained Trailblazers, while Harmanpreet Kaur and Mithali Raj captained Supernovas and Velocity respectively.
