Women’s T20 Challenge from today

Smriti’s Trailblazers and Harmanpreet’s Supernovas meet in the opener 

Pune

Shubhangi Kulkarni will drive to the MCA Stadium, in the outskirts of the city, on Monday evening. Since the BCCI announced that her hometown will host the Women's T20 Challenge, the former India captain has been looking forward to the tournament.

Like her, just about everyone associated with the women’s game will closely be following the six-day tournament, considered as a trial for a women’s IPL. With news emerging that the BCCI is keener than ever before about launching the Women’s IPL, and a few IPL franchises showing interest in forming teams, you find a lot of excitement about the T20 Challenge, especially from uncapped domestic players.

Some of them are here. Batters like Kiran Navgire and bowlers like Maya Sonawane and Aarti Kedar could well be in focus. The hard-hitting Kiran had hit headlines when she clobbered 162 not out off just 76 balls for Nagaland against Arunachal Pradesh in the Senior Women’s T20 tournament last month.

She will of course be facing much better bowling attacks here, and it will be interesting to find out if this would be the breakout tournament for her like the 2019 edition was for Shafali Verma.

Shafali, one of the most explosive batters in the women’s game now, is among the biggest attractions of the tournament. Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur too are expected to delight the fans with their strokeplay.

As in the past, the event will also feature some of the biggest stars in women’s cricket from overseas, like Deandra Dottin, Sophie Ecclestone, Laura Wolvaardt, Sune Luus and Sophia Dunkley.