Suzie Bates, the New Zealand Women's captain, believes the fact that
matches in English cricket's new Super League are all stand alone
affairs will show just how much progress women's cricket is making as a
professional sport.
The Twenty20 competition gets underway this
weekend, with officials hoping to emulate the success of Australia's
already-established Women's Big Bash League (WBBL).
But while
many WBBL fixtures, as has happened with a number of women's Twenty20
Internationals, have been staged as double-headers alongside men's
matches, fixtures in the Super League will have to attract crowds purely
on their own merits.
"I guess (a double-header) has its
advantages and disadvantages, you get to play at some of the main
grounds and get the fans in towards the end of the game," said Bates.
"With
this competition, hopefully we'll be creating our own fan-base and on
some of the smaller grounds we can fill it out, get lots of girls down
to the ground, rather than always piggy-backing off the men."
Former
England captain Charlotte Edwards, who will be a teammate of Bates's
again at the Southern Vipers after their pair played alongside other in
the WBBL for the Perth Scorchers, added: "I think it's great that we've
got stand-alone games here; you'll probably get a good gauge of where
the women's game's at from the crowds we're hopefully going to attract.
Six
specially created teams will compete in the Super League from July 30
to August 21, with a 50-overs-per-side element added next year ahead of
the Women's World Cup in England and Wales next year.
But Edwards
was in no doubt that Twenty20, the shortest of cricket's professional
formats, was the way to showcase women's cricket to a new audience.
"We've
learnt over a period of time that the T20 format is the best way to
promote the game and I think this is a great opportunity to do that
again," said Edwards."I think it's a great way to attract people to
watch -- we want it to be an energetic and dynamic game which hopefully
attracts young girls to play.
"It's going to be a 50-over comp
before the World Cup next summer and the T20 afterwards, so it's
exciting times," Edwards added.
England and Australia have been
the dominant nations in women's cricket for most of Bates's career but
the success of the West Indies in winning the World Twenty20 earlier
this year was evidence of an increasingly competitive global game.
"New
Zealand had six players in the Big Bash League and our team's gone from
strength to strength, with our top players getting exposure to
competitive cricket and pressure situations," Bates said.
"So I
think it'll strengthen South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand and
hopefully we can keep competing with England and Australia, who've been
top dogs for a while now.
"I think everyone agrees if we can have
six to eight teams worldwide competing regularly, it's going to be good
for the women's game."

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