Right time to start women's IPL tournament: ODI captain Mithali Raj to WION

India Women’s cricket team has made all the right noises in the recent past but it still lags behind in terms of benefits, outreach and popularity to the men's game.

And now, with men's Indian Premier League (IPL) having entered its 12th edition and its popularity growing in leaps and bounds with each passing year, Indian women's ODI captain Mithali Raj proposed to have such a tournament for her side also.

In an exclusive to WION, Mithali talked about the growing clamour for a women's IPL in the country, saying "it is the right time to start the tournament."

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However, a year or so earlier, Mithali was the one who said on the record that such a tournament is not viable because there isn't perhaps a large enough talent pool of Indian women players.

When asked does that still holds true, Mithali said, after the 2018 Women's Twenty20 Asia Cup, things have changed for the women players in the country.

"I was asked about the IPL 3-4 years ago. Back then I felt that we as women's cricket in India still need to grow, still need to spread that awareness among people. Attract people to follow women's cricket."

"But now after the world cup, after the one-day world cup, I have seen how people are so interested to follow the national side, the performance of the team and even the profiling of each player has improved since then. And I only think that we should start, even though we don't have a pool of players. "

The 36-year-old women cricketer said, that such tournament will help create a base.

"We should start may be as three or four teams and try to have a double leg because it will create a base and in another two-three season we might improve and increase the participation of team," she added.

Mithali is the highest run-scorer in women's international cricket and the only female cricketer to surpass the 6,000 run mark in WODIs.

During the 2018 Women's Asia Cup, she also became the first player from India (either male or female) to score 2000 runs in T20Is, and also became the first woman cricketer to reach 2000 WT20I runs.

And after achieving all such record, Raj felt that the women's side is not getting its worth and hence she proposed a mixed gender cricket match.

When asked why such where this idea came from, Raj said," It is all about having a gender equality platform and we should be starting from sports arena and cricket is something, where for a long period people associate men's cricket when they talk about the sport. "

"But since the 2-3 years after the World Cup, the way the India women's cricket team has done, now the conversation tilts towards women's cricket too."

Raj also added that the cricket sport should not be seen as one gender's property.

"I think this is important that this as a sport should be seen in our country and not men's cricket or women's cricket. And this is also a good concept I feel because a lot of general people, when they travel on the streets, see a lot of boys playing but never do you get to see a girl playing along with them."

When asked if that is even possible, Raj was quick to say 'yes' because "as professional cricketers, we train along with boys at the nets or we have some matches playing against them."

"So I think it is a great thing to have a gender-mixed match and promote gender equality for young kids, where boys and girls are playing together for the same team."