Cricket’s Big Three in talks to launch Women’s T20 Champions by 2024

After the massive success of the inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League, Australia, India and England are in high-level talks to launch the Women’s Twenty20 Champions League as soon as next year. Nick Hockley and Mike Baird, the Cricket Australia chief executive and chair have been discussing the concept along with the cricket boards of India and England in recent weeks, including the meetings around the Lord’s Ashes Test and the World Test Championship final at the Oval.

The CA Spokesperson confirmed that the discussions were going on but declined to comment further when contacted by this masthead. More talks regarding this took place this week at the annual conference of the Cricket Governing Body in South Africa. The member nations have approved a proposal to hand the Indian Cricket Board as much as 38 per cent of revenue from the recent $US3 billion ($4.35 billion) sale of the rights to global events.

The revenue is nearly double the 22 per cent India was allotted under the previous distribution deal, signed off in 2017. Among other determinations, the T20 franchise leagues were given greater regulations including a minimum threshold of seven local players per team.

The new Chairman of CA, Baird is set to join Apex Cricket Council’s powerful finance and commercial affairs committee, placing him head to head with Indian Cricket Board’s secretary Jay Shah on the big questions of cricket economics.

Will this also bring the Men’s T20 Champions League back?

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, “It would be a far more significant development for the game than the announcement of equal prize money for men’s and women’s World Cups at the end of the Durban meeting. Unlike tennis or golf, the lifeblood of a cricketer’s career is contracts and match payments, which would rise considerably should the Champions League become a success.”

With broadcast rights expected to be shared among the countries involved, the introduction of the league would mimic the attempt to restart a men’s T20 Champions League when the IPL was launched in 2008.