India's veteran bowler Jhulan Goswami has vouched for a full-fledged women's Indian Premier League season. She believes that a full IPL season for women criceters will be a 'big achievement for the country', adding that it would aid young cricketers in particular.
At the moment, the women's T20 challenge takes place during the play-off week of the IPL, but it has only four matches.
In a recent conversation with SportsTiger's show 'Off-the-Field', Jhulan said: "As far as IPL is concerned, we do wish for the full-fledged tournament should start and we are all waiting for that. Women's IPL will be a big achievement for the country and for young cricketers as they are going to share the dressing room with top-notch Indian and international talent."
The Indian fast bowling legend, now aged 37, has 225 ODI wickets to her name. She believes that age is just a number and what matters the most is the passion for the sport.
"As a professional athlete, you never think about age. You just go on with your passion, hard work and love for the game. You just want to be on the ground as much as possible and that is the most satisfying factor for any athlete. And I am just enjoying myself."
Jhulan Goswami was one of the key members of the side which reached the final of the 2017 Women's World Cup, where India lost to England. The side fell short by merely nine runs in Lord's. Recalling India's performance in the tournament, Goswami has said that it was a case of 'so near yet so far'.
Reminiscing her memories from the journey in the tournament, she said, "It was a huge achievement to play in front of a full house at Lords in the final. We started the world cup on a high note.
"It was an absolute team effort from the very beginning. Whether you speak about Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj, Ekta Bisht, Deepti Sharma, Shikha Pandey or Rajeshwari Gayakwad, everyone had contributed. As a team, we believed and performed."
"We reached the finals and it was the only last 10 overs where we lost the match. For the 90 overs we had dominated the match and it was only the last 10 overs of England's bowling where we couldn't handle the pressure. It is a pain but we have to move on.
"But the 2017 World Cup, irrespective of everything, was the year of revolution for women's cricket in our country. I think momentum which was required for women's cricket was set up by us. If you look at our team's performance in the last three years, we have been very consistent and only lost in the final whether it is ODI or T20I," she added.