Experienced India batter Mithali Raj hopes to see a women’s edition of the Indian Premier League in a year or two, after her team began its ICC Women’s World Twenty20 campaign with successive wins over New Zealand and Pakistan.
Harmanpreet Kaur became the first Indian woman to score a T20I century, during India’s tournament opener against New Zealand, before Raj hit a 47-ball 56 to help India beat arch-rivals Pakistan by seven wickets on Sunday. This was Raj’s fourth 50-plus score in a World T20 match, taking her to the top of the list among Indians.
The IPL had hosted a women’s exhibition match during the 2018 edition but Raj hopes that more success in the shortest format would herald a full-fledged tournament for them soon.
“Well, I definitely see IPL in say a year or two definitely because a lot of people back at home do talk about women’s IPL,” Raj said in her post-match press conference on Sunday. “But then it all boils down to the board and the franchises to come forward to get the setup going.”
Raj added that she was unsure about what the progress was in terms of setting up a Women’s IPL. “Well, I don’t sit in the BCCI office, so I don’t know,” she said. “But as a player I can only say that a lot of people show keen interest in women’s IPL.”
She added, “We’ve already discussed [the Women’s IPL] with the BCCI a few months back when we had the exhibition match, and it has been successful in terms of viewership. But after that, what’s the follow-up, I have no idea, because we were preparing for ourselves for this World Cup.
The 35-year-old Raj also said that this would probably be her last World T20 considering the Indian team is settling down after a period of transition. “I see representing the country is the biggest motivation and inspiration no matter how many years you spend there wearing the India colours,” she said.
“But yes, when you also think that the team has gone through a lot of transition, and there are a lot of youngsters in the side, so at some point more than myself, whether I would be able to give the best or not, there are times when I think about the team, whether it is the right time to move forward, and I believe that now the team is settling, so it could probably be the last World Cup for me, [in] the T20 format,” she added.
Raj also admitted that India would have to improve their catching if they are to do well in this tournament. India dropped three catches against Pakistan and were even responsible for some sloppy fielding. However, Raj stopped short of saying her team is a bad fielding side.
“[Fielding is] always part of the training sessions but then no matter how much you train – even as a batter obviously you will have a ball that you get out to no matter how good a technically sound batter you are. It goes [the same] even for fielders. You might be the best fielder in the world, but there would be a point sometimes it happens in the sport that you drop catches. But not necessarily do you have to say that it’s a bad fielding side or a bad fielder. It’s just part of the sport.”
She added, “But yes, it will be playing on our mind that we shouldn’t be doing the same mistakes in the coming matches because at some point it might cost us. We’ve seen in the previous games, in the previous tournaments, how important it is to take catches.”