Cricket Australia unhappy with clash of dates between Women's T20 Challenge and WBBL

Proper planning and communication should go into scheduling women’s domestic competitions such as the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) in Australia and the Women’s T20 Challenge (also called Women’s IPL) in India, feels former Aussie women cricketer and current Cricket Australia (CA) board director Mel Jones.

This comes after the Covid-19 pandemic forced both the T20 tournaments to be scheduled in November this year. The clash of dates means lots of women cricketers from around the world will miss one of the events by default.

Neither will Indian stars like Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana be able to take part in WBBL, nor can players from the T20 World Cup-winning squad like Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry attend the Indian league.

Interestingly, the Aussies had missed out on last year’s T20 Challenge as well owing to BCCI and CA’s stand-off. However, CA hopes this will be a one-off thing as Covid-19 sent all schedules into a tizzy this year.

“For this once off it’s not ideal in the sense it clashes with the WBBL and we’d love to see the Indian players here but moving forward we’ll have the clear windows for our players to go there and their players to come here,” Mel Jones told ESPNcricinfo.

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Jones added that women’s domestic competitions should be strategically scheduled to enable a free flow of players from all over the world. She has also had conversations regarding the same with some ICC officials. CA interim CEO said WBBL will miss the services of Indian players this year.

“This year is an atypical year with everything going on. The reality is you have the whole IPL infrastructure in Dubai. Hopefully it’s a one-year anomaly given a lot has been disrupted this year. Going forward, [it would be] fantastic to have the likes of Harmanpreet play in the WBBL,” added Nick Hockley.

The WBBL will be played from October 17th to November 29th, while the T20 Challenge will be held from November 1st to November 10th.