Former India fast bowler Jhulan Goswami believes "franchise cricket is the future of women's cricket" and that it's time T20 leagues are prioritised over bilateral series. Goswami, the highest wicket-taker in women's ODIs, has been the bowling coach and mentor with Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Women's Premier League (WPL) for the last two years and is set to join the Trinbago Knight Riders coaching staff for the upcoming Women's CPL.
"It's a big challenge for women's cricket," Goswami said on ESPNcricinfo's Powerplay podcast about the calendar clashes. "Earlier we saw these things happen for men's cricket but never expected it to happen for women's cricket, but that's happening. And I'm happy to see that. The ICC needs to take care, franchise cricket is the future of women's cricket. And that's the growth of women's cricket globally. You have to give priority to every franchise league otherwise cricket will not grow."
The club-versus-country debate in women's cricket has become louder especially in the last couple of years as T20 leagues have started to grow around the world. Top Australia players like Meg Lanning, Ashleigh Gardner and Tahlia McGrath pulled out of the women's Hundred last year to manage their workloads in a busy 2023 which included the maiden WPL season along with the T20 World Cup, the multi-format Ashes, and the WBBL apart from other bilateral assignments. India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana had also pulled out of the WBBL for the second year in a row in 2023 to focus on domestic cricket.
A similar calendar clash came up when England's tour of New Zealand coincided with the last stage of the WPL in India earlier this year. As a result, England captain Heather Knight chose the bilateral tour over playing for eventual champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru, while her team-mate Lauren Bell also pulled out of the WPL. More recently, Chamari Athapaththu, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma and Richa Ghosh missed the first week of the women's Hundred while featuring in the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka last month.
"See how many quality cricketers were produced by franchise cricket in the last few years, starting with WBBL as well as the Hundred, WCPL, WPL," Goswami said. "A lot of youngsters they've provided every year so you have to give priority to those windows and after that you have to have bilateral series. If you have your bilateral series and franchise leagues clashing then you will lose out on quality cricketers. And if you don't have quality cricketers then your tournament is not going to be successful. In women's cricket we don't have a lot of options, a few quality cricketers we have in the world. If they're occupied in bilateral series, then the volume of the [T20] tournaments is going to go down. We should make sure that when the premier league (franchise) tournaments are going on, give them certain windows and after that you have the bilateral series. It will help women's cricket's growth also. That is my personal view."
A busy calendar awaits for the rest of 2024 as well. Once the women's Hundred finishes on August 18 at Lord's, the three-team WCPL will be played from August 22 to 30 in the Caribbean, featuring international players from India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, England and Australia. The action will then move to the T20 World Cup slated in October, and seven days after that ends, the WBBL will begin, scheduled from October 27 to December 1. That's the time the home season kicks off for Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, India and New Zealand. All these teams are also scheduled to host international matches in December and January, according to the FTP.