South Africa captain Sune Luus
The recently concluded women's IPL which was won by the Supernovas displayed a fantastic range of cricketing skills as compared to the one held in 2021 feels Proteas captain Sune Luus. The BCCI has been looking into women's cricket with a lot of seriousness and is committed to organizing a full-fledged women's IPL from 2023 with at least six teams locking horns with each other. The women's world cup held in 2017 was a path-breaking event that turned around the fortunes of many women cricketers. Luus feels that the Women's T20 Challenge has worked wonders for the Indian domestic players as they have benefitted immensely from it. Weighing into the matter Luus quoted "Indian domestic players can walk into the South African side any day".
The three-team T20 challenge which follows the exact format of the Indian Premier League allows only four overseas players in the final eleven. The Protea captain to her credit has won the FairBreak Invitational tournament in Dubai and the Women's T20 Challenge last month with the Tornadoes and Supernovas and considers this as a massive learning curve. When asked about the passion India as a nation has for cricket Luus said "You can't compare it to India. They are fanatics of cricket. They love it and even their domestic players can walk into the South African side any day. The standards were a bit different but overall it was good cricket". Currently, Luus is in Ireland as the Proteas gear up for the Irish white ball challenge. Luus has been a part of the Protes setup for quite some time now and has played franchise cricket all around the world. Speaking about her experience with Austria Luus quoted, "The most surprising thing for FairBreak was the standard of cricket. You don't know about Austrians playing cricket or countries like that but to see the standard they are at and the love of the game, it was exceptional to see".
Sharing her viewpoints on the rise of franchise cricket Luus says that there needs to be a fair amount of balance between leagues and international cricket as T20 leagues help players to learn and grow in different cultures but that does not mean international cricket should take a hit. As Luus gears up for the upcoming commonwealth games, she says "It's a very difficult thing because we have ICC points up for grabs, we have a Test match coming up which is quite new for a lot of the players, and in-between that we have to focus on T20 cricket for the Commonwealth Games".
(Inputs from PTI)
