Women’s cricket has been growing over the years in India. Women’s cricketers, along with Men’s cricketers have been given an equal preference in terms of contracts with the BCCI. The BCCI also started the Women’s Premier League (WPL) for Women’s cricketers, just like the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Men’s cricketers.
Today, we will relive the moments of the first edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL 2023). We will see the WPL award winners list, players with the most runs and wickets, and much more. So let’s dive into it quickly.
Inaugural WPL season
After long consideration, the BCCI finally came up with the Women’s Premier League in 2023. This was a very good initiative by the BCCI to promote women’s cricket in India.
Venues for the WPL 2023
Mumbai hosted the first season of WPL across two venues (Brabourne Stadium and DY Patil Stadium). The tournament was held from March 04-26 with Brabourne Stadium hosting the final. A total of 22 matches were played in WPL 2023.
Points table in WPL 2023
Delhi Capitals Women Dominated The WPL Points Table
Delhi Capitals Women finished at the top of the points table with 6 wins in 8 games. They qualified to play in the final because of the format of the tournament.
Mumbai Indians Women and UP Warriorz (No. 2 and No. 3 teams respectively) played the eliminator. The former won the eliminator by 72 runs.
Mumbai Indian Womens Team Won The Title
MI Women won the WPL 2023 finals after beating DC Women in the final by 7 wickets. After winning the toss, DC Women decided to bat first. They managed to score 131 in the first inning. Captain Lanning scored 35 runs, the most in the first inning. The whole MI Women’s bowling attack chipped in. Hayley Matthews was the pick of the bowler. She took 3 wickets and gave only 5 runs in her 4 overs.
Nat Sciver-Brunt’s 60 Helps The Team To Get Over The Line
MI Women chased down a target with 3 balls and 7 wickets left. Nat Sciver-brunt becomes the man of the match for her 60 off 55 balls. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur also played a crucial knock of 37 off 39 balls.
Let us now see who won the awards in WPL 2023.
WPL Award Winners List 2023
(1) Yastika got the Emerging Player of the Year award:-
Yastika Bhatia won the Emerging Player of the Year Award. She has scored 214 runs in 10 games with an average of 21.4 and a strike rate of 112.04 in WPL 2023.
(2) Three awards for Hayley Matthews
(a) WPL 2023 Purple cap holder
Hayley Matthews has been outstanding throughout the tournament. She contributed both with the bat and the ball.
Hayley won the purple cap as she took 16 wickets in 10 games with an average of 12.62. She was quite economical as well in terms of giving away runs (gave runs less than 6 an over) in the whole tournament.
(b) WPL 2023 Most valuable player
Hayley won the Most Valuable Player award in WPL 2023. She deserves to win this award as she contributed so much to the success of Mumbai Indians (MI) in WPL 2023. In fact, she becomes the only player to be in the top 5 list of most runs and most wickets in WPL 2023.
With 16 wickets in the tournament, she becomes the highest wicket-taker. And with the bat, she scored 271 runs in 10 games, with an average of 30.11 and a strike rate of 126.05. She finished at No. 5 in the top run scorers’ list in WPL 2023.
(c) Player of the Tournament award
There was no doubt that Hayley was the player of the tournament. Because of her all-round performance during the tournament, she was given the Player of the Tournament award. Whenever the team needs from her, she scored some valuable runs with the bat. She also delivered with the ball for her team.
(3) Meg Lanning wins the orange cap
The 31-year-old Aussie batter becomes the highest run scorer in WPL 2023 with 345 runs in 9 games. She averages 49.29 and has an outstanding strike rate of 139.11.
Lanning wins the orange cap award in WPL 2023. Unfortunately, her team (Delhi Capitals Women) lost the final against MI Women in WPL 2023.
WPL 2023: Full List Of Award Winners
Champions: Mumbai Indians Women Team
Runners-up: Delhi Capitals Women Team
WPL Orange Cap winner (Most Runs): Meg Lanning – 345 runs | Delhi Capitals Womens Team
WPL Purple Cap winner (Most Wickets): Hayley Matthews – 16 wickets | Mumbai Indians Womens Team
Most Valuable Player: Hayley Matthews – 284 Points | MI Womens Team
WPL Best Catch of the Season: Harmanpreet Kaur, Mumbai Indians – against UP Warriorz ( Devika Vaidya).
WPL FairPlay Award: MI & DC Womens Team (Shared).
Emerging Player of the Season (WPL): Yastika Bhatia – 214 runs, 6 catches & 7 stumpings | MI Womens Team
So these are the WPL award winners list in 2023.
WPL: Top 3 highest run-scorers
Meg Lanning won the orange cap as we discussed earlier. Other than her, Nat Sciver-Brunt and T McGrath become the 2nd and 3rd highest run scorers in the tournament with 332 and 302 runs respectively.
WPL: Top 3 wicket-takers
After Hayley, Sophie Ecclestone and Issy Wong become the 2nd and 3rd highest wicket-takers in the tournament with 16 and 15 wickets respectively.
Mumbai Indians Women Team Dominated The Chart
In the top 5 run scorers, 3 of the players are of MI. As far as the top 5 wicket takers are concerned, 4 out of 5 are MI Women players.
Conclusion
So we looked back at the WPL 2023 season in this article. The next edition will also see the home and away format next year. Thank you for reading. Keep following us for the latest updates.
