The baby steps taken last year in the direction of building up a league tournament for women have yielded to a conspicuous effort this season. For starters, the kits have been upgraded and no longer look like straight out of grandma's lifehacks tutorial. Save for one game, the match timings are primetime. The pitch is expected to be better suited to T20 cricket, and the venue is a second-tier city, the ones that have traditionally managed to put more bums on the seats in the stadiums. Crucially, the one-off exhibition contest has made way for a short yet expanded, triangular series that will see Harmanpreet Kaur's Supernovas and Smriti Mandhana's Trailblazers joined by a third entity - Mithali Raj-led Velocity - in a four-match affair spread over the course of the final week of IPL 2019, starting May 6.
WOMEN'S T20 CHALLENGE
It's bigger. It's bolder. It's back!
Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana will lead Velocity, Supernovas and Trailblazers respectively in the Women's T20 Challenge © Getty
The expansion to three teams meant more names had to be roped in. World T20-winning captain Stafanie Taylor and Hayley Matthews bring in the Caribbean flavour that has become synonymous with league cricket, while Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have got representation too this time.The biggest win for India, though, is the substantial influx of domestic players, and not just India-regulars. From 16 last year, the number has gone up to 27, presenting a golden opportunity for a little-known
