WPL created a platform for young players to achieve their dreams: Beth Mooney

Bengaluru: Beth Mooney, the captain of Gujarat Giants, believes the Women’s Premier League (WPL) has created a platform for the young players in India to achieve their cricketing dreams.

The second edition of WPL gets underway at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday, with defending champions Mumbai Indians taking on last year’s runners-up Delhi Capitals. Gujarat will open their campaign on February 25 against Mumbai at the same venue.

“Yeah, I think the WPL has created a platform for young players to showcase their skills and achieve their dreams. And I think the most exciting thing about this competition is the big crowds that we get. Obviously, we’re playing at some great stadiums this year in Bangalore and Delhi and the crowd support over here in India is amazing.”

“A lot of us didn’t get the experience of that until later in our careers, so it’s really cool to see some young players get to play in front of 20 or 30,000 people. For them, it means when they do get to play international cricket it’s not as daunting to be in that situation. So yeah I'm really looking forward to it being a good tournament,” said Beth on JioCinema’s WPL captains huddle show.

Harmanpreet Kaur, the Mumbai skipper, feels WPL 2024 will be more exciting. “I think Season 2 of the WPL will be more exciting. The first one is always special. I think now we all have set some benchmarks for the second edition. Everyone knows what we can bring to the stadium. So, I think this season is more exciting and really looking forward to that.”

Similar views were echoed by Meg Lanning, Delhi’s captain. "I think we’ve got some world-class players from all around the world, which is great. Put that together with all the Indian players who are very experienced now and well known, that really creates some really high-quality cricket.

“The younger players coming in are getting some opportunity to play on a really big stage and sort of announce themselves. So, I think it caters for everyone in a lot of ways, provides some great opportunities.”

Royal Challengers Bangalore will face UP Warriorz in the second match of WPL 2024 on February 24 and captain Smriti Mandhana thinks it has left an impact in terms of how Indian players who were the finds of the tournament fared at the international level.

"From the Indian perspective, it’s a bridge from domestic to international cricket. We’ve seen what happens in the other leagues, WBBL and The 100. We’ve played that and we always wanted to have one in India and it’s like the perfect bridge for Indian domestic players to step onto the international stage.”

“We’ve seen that in the last one year. Whoever has played the WPL and come into the Indian team, they are a lot more confident now. So, from that perspective, it really gives a big platform to the domestic girls to look forward and have that amazing domestic season so that they get to play the WPL.”

Alyssa Healy, the Warriorz skipper, agreed with the viewpoints. “I think that the investment around the tournament itself is noteworthy. Look at this year, we get to play on some really iconic grounds in India, we’re playing on the big stage in front of lots of people.”

“I know, as an international player coming into the tournament playing in these conditions are very foreign to us. So having the opportunity to do that and the investment around the game as a whole, I think makes it really special.”