Image Credit: TOI
Royal Challengers Bangalore put in a comprehensive display in the final as they beat the Delhi Capitals to clinch the Women’s Premier League 2024. RCB’s spinners first orchestrated a stunning collapse of the Delhi batting order and they restricted them to just 113 runs. In response, Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry never allowed any jitters to creep in as they won the match by 8 wickets.
The Women’s Premier League (WPL) is a Twenty20 cricket league for women in India. It’s managed and owned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The inaugural season was held in March 2023, where Mumbai Indians emerged as the champions. Matches were hosted in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, played between five franchises. The ongoing second season is taking place in February and March 2024, with matches being held in Bangalore and Delhi.
The WPL is an extension of the Women’s T20 Challenge, which started as a single-match event in 2018 and expanded to a three-team, three-match competition in 2019, 2020, and 2022. In February 2022, the then BCCI President Sourav Ganguly revealed plans to create a women’s version of the Indian Premier League (IPL). This new league would replace the Women’s T20 Challenge. By August, these plans had progressed further, and in October, the BCCI announced the consideration of a five-team tournament scheduled for March 2023.
The league’s format follows the structure of the IPL. Five teams – Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Giants, Royal Challengers Bangalore and UP Warriorz play against each other twice in a round-robin format. The top three teams with the most points move on to the playoff stage of the competition. The inaugural season of the league was held from March 4 to March 26, 2023, featuring a total of 22 matches. Mumbai Indians defeated the Delhi Capitals in the final to lift their first trophy.
List of Women’s IPL winners
| Year | Winning Team | Captain |
| 2023 | Mumbai Indians | Harmanpreet Kaur |
| 2024 | Royal Challengers Banglore | Smriti Mandhana |
In the final of the WPL 2023, Delhi Capitals’ captain Meg Lanning won the toss and chose to bat first against Mumbai Indians. However, this decision didn’t work out well for Delhi as they struggled to get momentum and kept losing wickets regularly. Issy Wong performed exceptionally well, taking three wickets during the Powerplay overs. These early setbacks affected Delhi’s performance, and they couldn’t recover from it. At one point, their score was 79/9, indicating a difficult situation for them. However, a partnership between Shikha Pandey and Radha Yadav turned things around. They managed to score 52 runs in 24 balls, hitting three sixes and five fours, which helped Delhi Capitals reach a defendable total.
Mumbai Indians lost two early wickets in their chase. However, the experience of Harmanpreet Kaur and Nat Sciver-Brunt played a crucial role in guiding them to victory and securing the title.
WPL Winners Most Valuable Player
| Year | Player Of The Tournament |
| 2023 | Hayley Matthews (271 Runs, 16 Wickets) |
| 2024 | Deepti Sharma (295 Runs, 10 wickets) |
WPL Orange Cap Winners List
| Year | Winner | Innings | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | 50s | 100s | 4s | 6s |
| 2023 | Meg Lanning (DC-W) | 9 | 345 | 49.28 | 139.11 | 2 | 0 | 50 | 6 |
| 2024 | Ellyse Perry(RCB) | 9 | 341 | 69.4 | 125.72 | 2 | 0 | 41 | 7 |
WPL Purple Cap Winner List
| Year | Winner | Matches | Wkts | Av | ER | 4W | 5W | BBI |
| 2023 | Hayley Matthews (MI-W) | 10 | 16 | 12.62 | 5.94 | 0 | – | 3/5 |
| 2024 | Shreyanka Patil (RCB) | 8 | 13 | 12.08 | 7.3 | 2 | 0 |
Most Runs in WPL 2023
| Player | Team | Matches | Inns | Runs | HS |
| Meg Lanning | Delhi Capitals | 9 | 9 | 345 | 72 |
| Nat Sciver-Brunt | Mumbai Indians | 10 | 10 | 332 | 72* |
| Tahlia McGrath | UP Warriorz | 9 | 8 | 302 | 90* |
| Harmanpreet Kaur | Mumbai Indians | 10 | 9 | 281 | 65 |
| Hayley Matthews | Mumbai Indians | 9 | 9 | 271 | 77* |
Most Wickets in WPL 2023
| Player | Team | Matches | Inns | Wkts | BBI |
| Hayley Matthews | Mumbai Indians | 10 | 10 | 16 | 3/5 |
| Sophie Ecclestone | UP Warriorz | 9 | 9 | 16 | 4/13 |
| Amelia Kerr | Mumbai Indians | 10 | 10 | 15 | 3/22 |
| Issy Wong | Mumbai Indians | 10 | 10 | 15 | 4/15 |
| Saika Ishaque | Mumbai Indians | 10 | 10 | 15 | 4/11 |
Know about WPL 2024
The 2024 Women’s Premier League is currently underway. The tournament involves five teams and is taking place from February 23 to March 17, 2024. Each team is facing every other team twice, once at home and once away, in a double round-robin format. After completing this double round-robin league, the top three teams with the highest aggregate points move on to the playoffs. The team with the most points automatically secures a spot in the final match.
The tournament kicked off with the opening match between the defending champions Mumbai Indians and the Delhi Capitals on February 23, 2024, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. The final match is scheduled to take place on March 17, 2024, at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. A total of 60 players were retained by their respective teams from the previous season for WPL 2024.
Most Runs in WPL 2024
| Player | Team | Matches | Inns | Runs | HS |
| Ellyse Perry | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 9 | 9 | 347 | 66 |
| Meg Lanning | Delhi Capitals | 9 | 10 | 331 | 60 |
| Shafali Verma | Delhi Capitals | 9 | 8 | 309 | 71 |
| Smriti Mandhana | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 10 | 9 | 300 | 80 |
| Deepti Sharma | UP Warriorz | 8 | 9 | 295 | 88* |
Most Wickets in WPL 2024
| Player | Team | Matches | Overs | Wkts | BBI |
| Shreyanka Patil | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 8 | 21.3 | 13 | 4/22 |
| Asha Shobana | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 10 | 26 | 12 | 5/22 |
| Sophie Molineux | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 10 | 38 | 12 | 3/20 |
| Marizanne Kapp | Delhi Capitals | 7 | 28 | 11 | 3/5 |
| Sophie Ecclestone | UP Warriorz | 8 | 31.3 | 11 | 3/20 |
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