Pakistan Cricket Board postpones Women's T20 league to September 2023

The Pakistan Women's T20 League, which was supposed to run concurrently with the eighth edition of the Pakistan Super League next month, won't take place as scheduled. It has instead been shifted to September 2023 and will be run as a separately, and will not run alongside the Men's PSL. 

The league was postponed at the recommendation of the new PCB management committee, which is led by Najam Sethi. The new league, which will go under a different name, will consist of four clubs and be a stand-alone competition. The former chairman Ramiz Raja came up with the concept for the women's T20 league, which was meant to take place simultaneously with PSL matches in Rawalpindi.

Ramiz was a strong supporter of starting tournaments at the junior level and wanted to make women's cricket more lucrative by creating a franchise-based league. It was also not a good idea from a business standpoint for the women's PSL to take place on the same dates as the women's IPL's maiden season, which is set to take place in March 2023. 

The PSL governing council decided that the women's league was impractical at this point in the season due to the change in the PCB's administration. But the PCB will keep looking into possibilities for the league. There were thoughts about holding a few exhibition games as a test case during the men's PSL, but this concept was ultimately dropped.

As per a report by ESPNCricinfo, the PCB administration was hesitant to implement this concept due to a lack of funding. Instead, they desired to increase infrastructure spending in order to increase the number of players available around the nation. But after much thought, it was decided to hold a different tournament from the men's PSL, that would take place in two locations.

Making teams with enough seasoned players from the local pool will be one of the biggest issues the PCB will face. There are only a few female cricketers in Pakistan, with about 30-35 of them playing at the senior level. The National T20 and ODI Challenge Cups, which each feature three teams, make up Pakistan's entire domestic cricket circuit. 

Before the ongoing Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup, a large number of cricketers were selected through tryouts, but the group is still relatively young and in its developing stages. In an effort to increase the number of players in Pakistan, Lahore Qalandars has recently expanded its Player Development Program to include female cricketers. They might potentially become a source to the league because they already have a group of more than 20 women cricketers being nurtured at their high-performance center.

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