Super League: ECB finally go ahead with franchise based league
Jul 29, 2016 at 1:15 PM
ECB has finally laid out a plan for franchise based T20 cricket, and women are leading the way.
The city-based league will be launched on Saturday with six teams will vie for the inaugural Super League Championship.
Teams who are going to participate in this league are Lancashire Thunder, Loughborough, Southern Vipers, Surrey Stars, Western Storm and Yorkshire Diamonds are all seeking to reach Finals Day on Sunday 21 August and each side will have overseas signings.
England women team has blazed over the years. This summer the England Men’s team have played Sri Lanka and Pakistan in a “Super Series” with points awarded across all three formats, an idea first introduced for the 2013 Women’s Ashes.
There is a discussion to revolutionise the domestic men’s T20 game, they will be keeping a keen eye on whether or not the women’s Super succeeds.
In England after two back to back Ashes victories over Australia now they have 14 full fledged women teams .
But the women’s cricket is still at an amateur level and the gap between the players within the professional set up and those looking for a breakthrough widened.
But last year England’s defeat to Australia at home raised a question about the depth of England’s talent pool whether the decision to ‘go pro’ was the right move.
England’s women cricket director Clare Connor, who led an internal review of the women’s domestic competitions between November 2014 and February 2015, felt the ECB had no choice.
“Lots of things were done the wrong way round,” Connor admitted. “However, we had a group of around 20 players and we were asking for 100 days a year minimum from them when they were away from jobs, friends and family.
“The difference with the men’s game is that they have an underlying professional game. We had to pay them, to support them to get better.
“The internal review concluded that a competition, with fewer players in it than in the women’s county game [around 300], was needed to bridge the gap between women’s county cricket and international cricket and the Super League was approved by the ECB Board in July 2015.”
The league will start July 30.