The Board of Control for Cricket in India have agreed to feature a bilateral series with India women alongside the men’s team’s tour of South Africa in early 2018, reported Indian Express on Friday.
“They had requested us and we have accepted their proposal. It will help women’s team a lot and the matches will be shown live too. It will be played on the same stadium before India games. The BCCI is planning to have similar kind of activity for women’s in future too. There will be more India A games for women’s team in future,” sources in BCCI were quoted as saying.
The report also stated that in a meeting held few weeks ago featuring current and former captains Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami and the board, the women’s team had requested for more overseas fixtures and bilateral series to be played. It is also learnt that they had asked for more domestic matches and have an India A women’s team in place, a demand that the BCCI have agreed upon.
Former England all-rounder Clare Connor and current England and Wales Cricket Board’s director of women’s cricket had advocated double-headers earlier this year. She said: “To have men and women playing on the same pitch, shown on the same TV channel, with the same commentary team, is part of this normalising process that we’re all trying to speed up as quickly as we can.”
While a women’s Indian Premier League will have to wait longer, veteran India opener Gautam Gambhir had urged the BCCI to integrate double-header games in the franchise-based league. The left-hander had suggested that the women’s IPL matches can be held right before the men’s.
“If they can play before the men’s game [begins], there were will be a good crowd coming in, especially the second part of the innings, and that will help women’s cricket immensely and I hope BCCI takes it seriously and have a women’s IPL in place. Even if does not happen along with the men’s IPL, they should create a window for them.”
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