The Indian Premier League (IPL) on Monday unveiled two new teams for the T20 competition, with the Lucknow and Ahmedabad franchises sold for a combined 127.15 billion Indian rupees ($1.7 billion).
The RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, which owned the Pune franchise for two IPL campaigns, bid 70.9 billion Indian rupees for the Lucknow outfit while Irelia Company Pte. Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) bid a little over 56 billion Indian rupees for the Ahmedabad side.
Australia’s star cricketer Alyssa Healy is hoping that the BCCI uses a part of its recent $12.7 thousand crore windfall to start a full-fledged Indian Premier League (IPL) for the women in the near future.
Aware of the development, Healy told ‘The Australian’ on Thursday, “They (BCCI) have made all those moves and there’s still no word on whether they are even going to play the postponed exhibition games.
“They just got a $2 billion payday and hopefully some of that will go back into women’s cricket and maybe a women’s IPL in the near future.
“We want to see it happen, we want to see world cricket really strong and that’s the next step, for India to put on a showcase of an event and show the world how good these young Indian players are.” The league had approved a proposal in December to add two franchises to the world's richest T20 competition, which has an estimated brand value of $6.8 billion.
“I feel like I have made some thoughts known in the past about the way that has unfolded.
“From a personal perspective it was disappointing they postponed the women’s exhibition games. They did everything they possibly could to put the back end of the IPL on (after it was abandoned in April) leading into a World Cup and then within a week of that starting they have two new men’s IPL teams,” Healy said.
“Hopefully, it might start the conversation back in India about the women’s IPL. I know they would be really excited to see more of those exhibition games.