Full women's IPL will provide platform for new talent, reckons Jemimah Rodrigues

19-year-old Indian Women's Cricket team player Jemimah Rodrigues believes that a full-fledged IPL would help increase the bench strength of the Indian women's team as it would provide a platform for many young prospects to showcase their talents.

Jemimah Rodrigues also gave an example of how the cricket boards of Australia and England gave importance to women's cricket by starting the Women's Big Bash in 2015-16 and the Kia Super League in 2016, respectively.

She opined that both the Australian and English women's teams benefited from these tournaments as these competitions helped them unearth talents and improve their squad. Furthermore, she felt that India could take a leaf out of that book and enhance its team, which would help them go a step further after having lost out in the summit clashes of the 50-over Women's World Cup and the Women's T20 World Cup in 2017 and 2020, respectively.

"If you see the Big Bash and the Kia Super League have developed the game out there so much for Australia, England and now even New Zealand has started. That's (IPL) definitely going to develop the game and it's also going to get newer talent," Jemimah Rodrigues said on ICC's '100% Cricket'.

The BCCI has been hosting a Women's IPL as a three-team event and that has been running parallel to the playoffs of the men's IPL for the past two seasons. In fact, that endeavor has already borne fruit for the Indian outfit with players like Shafali Verma taking advantage of the platform and making their way into the national squad.

In furtherance of the same, Jemimah Rodrigues quipped that a full-fledged women's IPL would provide more opportunities to skilled players of the ilk of Shafali Verma which would increase the depth of the national side, considering these players would regularly rub shoulders with the premier cricketers from across the globe.

Jemimah Rodrigues hopeful of a full-fledged Women's IPL

Consequently, Jemimah Rodrigues stated that she hoped that the BCCI would chalk out a plan to conduct a full-fledged women's IPL in the near future.

"Playing matches in front of a crowd is a different experience, that's what's going to help us play international cricket alongside the experience we are going to get sharing the dressing room with Sophie Devine, Meg Lanning, we ourselves will get to learn so much. It will be great to have a women's IPL, the BCCI are on it, and hopefully soon we will be having a proper women's IPL," Jemimah Rodrigues asserted.