The Board of control for cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday announced the squads for the upcoming Women’s T20 challenge match.
The Women’s T20 exhibition match will be played at the iconic Wankhede Stadium, it was the one-of-its-kind match that will feature 26 players including 10 international (Australia, England and New Zealand).
The match will be played ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2018) Qualifier 1.
Elegant Indian opener Smriti Mandhana will lead IPL Trailblazers and India’s T20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur has been named the skipper of IPL Supernovas team.
Here are the squads:
| Sr No. | IPL Trailblazers | IPL Supernovas |
| 1 | Alyssa Healy (wk) | Danielle Wyatt |
| 2 | Smriti Mandhana (Captain) | Mithali Raj |
| 3 | Suzie Bates | Meg Lanning |
| 4 | Deepti Sharma | Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain) |
| 5 | Beth Mooney | Sophie Devine |
| 6 | Jemimah Rodrigues | Ellyse Perry |
| 7 | Danielle Hazell | Veda Krishnamurthy |
| 8 | Shikha Pandey | Mona Meshram |
| 9 | Lea Tahuhu | Pooja Vastrakar |
| 10 | Jhulan Goswami | Megan Schutt |
| 11 | Ekta Bisht | Rajseshwari Gayakwad |
| 12 | Poonam Yadav | Anuja Patil |
| 13 | Dayalan Hemalatha | Taniya Bhatia (wk) |
| – | Coach: Tushar Arothe | Coach: Biju George |
On this T20 Challenge game, IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla said: “Even as IPL continues to roll like a well-oiled machine, over the last couple of weeks, efforts were made to put in place a similar structure for women cricketers.”
“We were in talks with several Boards and I am pleased with the outcome. White Ferns captain Suzie Bates, attacking batter Sophie Devine, who holds the record for fastest half-century in women’s T20Is, Australia’s fine all-rounder Ellyse Perry, wicket-keeper bat Alyssa Healy, Megan Schutt and Beth Mooney have confirmed their participation. Danni Wyatt and Daniel Hazell will add the English flavour,”
“This special game will be played at Mumbai’s iconic Wankhede Stadium and will be telecast live in India and across the world,” he added.
Former Indian women’s team captain and Member of Committee of Administrators (CoA), Diana Edulji said: “We are excited to announce the first-of-its-kind exhibition match involving our women cricketers. BCCI has been pulling out all stops to promote and nurture women’s cricket and this is a small yet significant step towards a prospective league involving women’s stars in the future.”
“The IPL is the biggest and most popular league in the world and it has been a long-time endeavour to have a women’s league that can match the exuberance of IPL.”