History Of Women's Cricket Leagues (2007–2026)

Introduction: ₹3.4 Crore for One Season

In 2023, Royal Challengers Bengaluru paid ₹3.4 crore for Smriti Mandhana in the Women's Premier League auction — the highest bid for any player that year. Ten years earlier, the idea of a women's cricketer earning crores for a single T20 season would have sounded like fantasy.

That number tells you everything about how far women's league cricket has come. What started in 2007 as a small domestic T20 competition in New Zealand has grown into a global ecosystem of ten active leagues, multi-million-dollar auctions, packed stadiums, and millions of television viewers.

This is the complete guide to every women's cricket league in the world — where they are, when they started, how they work, and what comes next.

The History: From 2007 to 2026

Women's league cricket didn't arrive with a bang. It grew quietly, one country at a time.

2007 — New Zealand starts it all. The Women's Super Smash launches as a domestic T20 competition. Nobody calls it a revolution at the time. It's simply a national T20 tournament for women, running alongside the men's game. But it becomes the template: short format, multiple teams, a full season.

2012 — The West Indies follows. The Twenty20 Blaze begins as the region's domestic women's T20 competition. Cricket in the Caribbean has deep roots, and the Blaze gives the islands' best women players a regular stage.

2015 — Australia goes big. The Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) launches with eight franchises mirroring the men's BBL teams. This is the first women's league with genuine franchise muscle behind it — big clubs, television coverage, and international stars. It sets the standard every league after it tries to match.

2019 — South Africa joins in. The Women's T20 Super League starts as the country's top domestic women's T20 competition, giving the Proteas women a proper home platform.

2021 — England doubles down. Two competitions arrive: the Charlotte Edwards Cup (now the Vitality Blast Women) and The Hundred Women's Competition, the 100-ball experiment that runs alongside the men's Hundred with equal billing and shared venues.

2022 — The Caribbean gets its franchise league. The Women's Caribbean Premier League (WCPL) launches with three teams, attached to the men's CPL — small, but a franchise league in its own right.

2023 — India changes everything. The Women's Premier League (WPL) arrives with five franchises, a mega auction, and money the women's game has never seen. Overnight, it becomes the league every player wants to be part of.

2026 — New frontiers. The T20 Mumbai Women's League plays its inaugural season, and Bangladesh prepares its own Women's Bangladesh Premier League (WBPL).

Nineteen years. Ten leagues. One clear direction: up.

The Big Four: Franchise Leagues in Detail

Women's Premier League (WPL) — India

· Founded: 2023

· Teams: 5 — Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Gujarat Giants, UP Warriorz

· Format: T20

· Season: February–March (WPL 2027 expected Feb/Mar 2027)

The WPL is the richest and most-watched women's cricket league in the world. The BCCI's five franchises mirror IPL royalty — Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, and RCB all run women's sides — and the auction routinely produces headline numbers.

Four seasons are done. Mumbai Indians, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, won the inaugural title in 2023 and added a second in 2025. Royal Challengers Bengaluru, captained by Smriti Mandhana, won in 2024 and again in 2026 — drawing them level with Mumbai as the competition's most successful team. Delhi Capitals, under Jemimah Rodrigues, have reached every final from 2023 through 2026 but finished runners-up in all four — the nearly-team of the league. Gujarat Giants, captained by Ashleigh Gardner, and UP Warriorz, led by Meg Lanning, are still chasing their first title.

Star power is the WPL's currency. Nat Sciver-Brunt has been a cornerstone for Mumbai Indians alongside Harmanpreet, while the league's mix of Indian talent and overseas stars makes every season appointment viewing.

What makes the WPL different from every league before it is the auction. The mega auction ahead of the 2026 season saw franchises rebuild entire squads, with bidding wars that mirrored the men's IPL. Young Indian players who were unknown a year earlier walked away with life-changing contracts — proof that the league isn't just rewarding established stars, it's manufacturing new ones.

The MI–RCB rivalry has already become the league's defining contest: the two most successful franchises, the two biggest fan bases, and finals that feel like festivals. Delhi's four consecutive final defeats, meanwhile, have given the league its great tragic narrative — a team good enough to reach every summit and win none of them.

Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) — Australia

· Founded: 2015

· Teams: 8 — Adelaide Strikers, Brisbane Heat, Hobart Hurricanes, Melbourne Renegades, Melbourne Stars, Perth Scorchers, Sydney Sixers, Sydney Thunder

· Format: T20

· Season: October–December (12th season: Oct 29 – Dec 5, 2026)

The WBBL is the gold standard. Eleven seasons in, it remains the deepest women's T20 league on the planet — eight franchises, a long season, and a production quality that rivals any men's competition. Every Australian international plays in it, and the overseas slots are among the most coveted contracts in women's cricket.

The league's longevity is its strength. While newer leagues are still finding their feet, the WBBL has spent a decade refining everything from scheduling to broadcast to talent pathways. Young Australian players grow up dreaming of a WBBL contract the way English kids dream of the Premier League.

The WBBL also pioneered the double-header model — women's games played before men's BBL fixtures at the same venue — which introduced the league to audiences who might never have sought it out. Its overseas draft, which lets franchises recruit international stars through a formal selection event, has become a template other leagues now copy.

The Hundred Women's Competition — England

· Founded: 2021

· Teams: 8 — the same eight city-based sides as the men's Hundred

· Format: 100 balls per side

· Season: July–August

The Hundred is cricket's boldest experiment, and the women's competition has been central to it from day one — not an afterthought. Same teams, same venues, double-headers with the men's games, equal prize money. The 100-ball format makes for punchy, television-friendly cricket, and running the women's games as curtain-raisers (or main events) in front of big crowds has done wonders for visibility.

Since 2021, it has become a fixture of the English summer and a key shop window for England's women's team.

Women's Caribbean Premier League (WCPL) — West Indies

· Founded: 2022

· Teams: 3

· Format: T20

· Season: August–September

The smallest of the franchise leagues, but an important one. The WCPL gives Caribbean women's cricket a franchise identity attached to the CPL brand, with matches played in front of the region's famously festive crowds. Three teams keep it compact; the hope is that it grows the way the men's CPL did.

The Other Six: Domestic Leagues

Women's Super Smash — New Zealand (2007)

The oldest of them all. New Zealand's domestic T20 competition has been running for nearly two decades — before the WBBL, before the WPL, before women's franchise cricket was even a phrase. It remains the backbone of the White Ferns' talent pipeline.

Twenty20 Blaze — West Indies (2012)

The Caribbean's domestic women's T20 tournament, running for over a decade. It feeds players into the WCPL and the West Indies national side.

Women's Super Series — Ireland (2015)

Ireland's domestic women's competition. Small in scale, but vital for a country whose women's team has consistently punched above its weight internationally.

Women's T20 Super League — South Africa (2019)

South Africa's premier domestic women's T20 competition and the proving ground for the Proteas women.

Vitality Blast Women — England (2021)

England's domestic women's T20 competition (launched as the Charlotte Edwards Cup), running alongside the county structure. It sits below The Hundred in the pyramid but produces a steady stream of talent.

T20 Mumbai Women's League — India (2026)

The newest arrival. The inaugural season was played June 1–13, 2026, at the Wankhede Stadium — a city-based women's T20 league in India's cricket capital. One to watch: if Mumbai's model works, expect other Indian cities to follow.

Women's Bangladesh Premier League (WBPL) — Bangladesh (planned)

Bangladesh's first franchise-based women's T20 competition. The inaugural edition, planned with three teams, was shifted to July 2026 after sponsor and franchise complications. The ambition is real; the execution is still catching up.

Every League at a Glance

|---|---|---|---|---|

| WBBL | Australia | 2015 | 8 | T20 |

| WCPL | West Indies | 2022 | 3 | T20 |

| WPL | India | 2023 | 5 | T20 |

Pakistan and Bangladesh: The Waiting Game

Two major cricket nations still don't have a women's franchise league — and both know it.

Pakistan has no franchise women's league yet. The PCB's women's wing has confirmed a franchise-based T20 tournament is "under discussion but not finalized as yet" — the board wants its homework done before launch. What Pakistan does have, right now, is a thriving domestic competition: the National Women's T20 Tournament 2026-27 is running October 10–25 in Faisalabad, with five teams — Challengers, Conquerors, Invincibles, Stars, and Strikers — playing 21 matches. Stars are the defending champions. The captains read like a Pakistan women's who's who: Fatima Sana (Strikers), Muneeba Ali (Conquerors), Gull Feroza (Invincibles), Ayesha Zafar (Challengers), and Tuba Hassan (Stars). The tournament made headlines on day one when Eyman Fatima scored a century — a reminder that the talent is there, waiting for a bigger stage.

Bangladesh is one step closer. Its WBPL was meant to launch with three teams, but a lack of sponsor interest and a missing third franchise forced a postponement to July 2026. The will is there; the money is still being lined up.

For both countries, a franchise league feels like a matter of when, not if.

The League Calendar: Never an Off-Season

One underappreciated fact about women's league cricket: the calendar now barely stops. The WPL runs in February–March, the English summer (Vitality Blast Women and The Hundred) covers May–August, the WCPL lands in August–September, Pakistan's National Women's T20 Tournament fills October, and the WBBL closes out the year from late October to December.

For players, that means near year-round professional cricket is possible — hopping from league to league the way men's T20 freelancers do. For fans, there's always something to watch. The sport has gone from a few scattered tournaments to a genuine global circuit.

The Impact: What Leagues Changed

Pay. The ₹3.4 crore Mandhana bid is the headline, but the real story is the floor rising everywhere. WBBL contracts, Hundred salaries, and WPL auction money mean a top women's cricketer can now make a genuine living from league cricket alone — something unthinkable fifteen years ago.

Talent pipeline. Every strong women's national team now sits on top of a league. Australia's dominance maps directly onto the WBBL's depth. India's surge tracks the WPL era. Leagues give young players professional environments — coaches, analysts, pressure — years before their international debuts.

Viewership. WPL finals draw television audiences in the millions. WBBL games fill prime-time slots in the Australian summer. The Hundred's double-headers put women's cricket in front of crowds that never watched it before. Visibility feeds sponsorship, sponsorship feeds pay, pay feeds talent. The flywheel is spinning.

The Future: What's Next

The direction of travel is obvious: more leagues, more money, more professionalism. Bangladesh's WBPL should finally launch. Pakistan's franchise tournament is a matter of time. India's T20 Mumbai experiment could spark a wave of city leagues. And the established giants — WPL, WBBL, the Hundred — will keep raising the bar.

The deeper question is convergence. Men's franchise cricket is consolidating into a year-round circuit; the women's game is a decade behind on that curve, but it's following the same path. Within five years, expect a genuine global women's T20 circuit where the best players move from league to league, season to season.

Watch for three specific things. First, a women's T10 or new-format experiment — short formats keep getting shorter, and someone will try it. Second, expansion of existing leagues: the WPL's five teams feel like a starting point, not a ceiling, and the WCPL's three teams are clearly built to grow. Third, the first genuinely global women's franchise competition — a Champions League-style event pitting league winners against each other. The men's game tried it; the women's game will do it better.

The ₹3.4 crore bid was a milestone, not a ceiling.

Why This Matters for Fans

If you're new to women's cricket, leagues are the easiest way in. International schedules are patchy and bilateral series come and go, but leagues are packaged entertainment: fixed seasons, city loyalties, fantasy leagues, and highlight reels. Pick a team — Mumbai's star power, Sydney's consistency, London's double-headers — and you'll have a reason to watch every week.

Leagues are also where tomorrow's international stars announce themselves. The teenager smashing it in the WBBL this December is the player you'll be cheering in the next World Cup. Follow the leagues and you'll never be surprised by a debutant again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which was the first women's cricket league in the world?

New Zealand's Women's Super Smash, launched in 2007 — eight years before Australia's WBBL and sixteen before India's WPL.

Which is the biggest women's cricket league?

The Women's Premier League (WPL) in India — the richest, with the biggest auction numbers and largest audiences. Australia's WBBL is the oldest franchise league and arguably the deepest in playing quality.

How many teams play in the WPL?

Five: Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Gujarat Giants, and UP Warriorz.

Who has won the most WPL titles?

Mumbai Indians (2023, 2025) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (2024, 2026) have two titles each. Delhi Capitals have finished runners-up in all four seasons.

Does Pakistan have a women's cricket league?

Not a franchise league yet — it's under discussion at the PCB. Pakistan does run the National Women's T20 Tournament, a five-team domestic T20 competition.

What is the format of The Hundred women's competition?

100 balls per side — not T20. It's the only major women's league not played as traditional twenty-over cricket.

Watch: The Full Story on Video

[VIDEO EMBED: Women's Cricket Leagues — The Complete Story — YouTube URL to be added after upload]

Prefer watching to reading? Our video walks through all ten leagues in chronological order — from New Zealand 2007 to the newest arrivals of 2026 — in under six minutes.

Keep Exploring Women's Cricket

Want the backstory? Read our guide to the history of women's cricket, from 1745 to the modern era.

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