The Women's National Cricket League (WNCL) is the national domestic 50-over competition for

women's cricket Women's cricket is the form of the team sport of cricket when played by women only. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries around the world and 108 national teams participate internationally. 11 of them have WTest and WODI ...

in Australia. Featuring seven teams—one from every

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

, plus the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

—each season's winner is awarded the Ruth Preddy Cup.

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

have historically dominated the competition, appearing in the first 24 title deciders and winning 20 championships. The streak of final appearances was broken in the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season when they finished in fourth place.

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

are the current champions. Beginning in 1996–97, the WNCL replaced the Australian Women's Cricket Championships which had taken place in a two-week tournament format since 1930–31. In conjunction with its

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

counterparts—the more recently established

Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup The Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup (WT20) was the premier domestic women's Twenty20 cricket competition in Australia. Beginning in 2007 as a series of exhibition matches, the first official tournament took place during the summer of 2009–10. ...

and its high-profile successor, the

Women's Big Bash League The Women's Big Bash League (known as the WBBL and, for sponsorship reasons, the Weber WBBL) is the Australian women's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition. The WBBL replaced the Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup, which ran from the 2007–08 ...

(WBBL)—the league is cited as a bedrock foundation for developing the standard of women's cricket in the country, helping to produce world-class talent as well as attracting top international players. In particular, it is considered a crucial platform for Australia's finest young cricketers to further develop their skills and strive for

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

selection. The WNCL has experienced a rising level of professionalism since its inception, though the most notable breakthrough occurred in 2017 when the Australian Cricketers' Association negotiated a watershed deal with

Cricket Australia Cricket Australia (CA), formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the 'Australian Board of Control for International Crick ...

to expand the total female payment pool from $7.5 million to $55.2 million.

Teams

The tournament features seven teams, with matches played across Australia at a combination of bigger venues including the

WACA Ground The WACA (formally the WACA Ground) is a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia. The stadium's name derives from the initials of its owners and operators, the Western Australian Cricket Association. The WACA has been referred to as Wester ...

in Perth and Blundstone Arena in Hobart, as well as smaller grounds including CitiPower Centre in Melbourne and

Karen Rolton Oval Karen Rolton Oval is a cricket ground in Adelaide, South Australia, named after the former Australian cricketer Karen Rolton. It is located near the corner of West Terrace and Port Road, opposite the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, in the east ...

in Adelaide. Originally a five-team competition, the league was expanded to include the

in 2009–10 and

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

in 2010–11. Cricket ACT fields a team in the league despite being a non-member association of Cricket Australia.

Results

Season summaries

Sources:

Final(s) summaries

1996–2007

From the inaugural season through to 2006–07, the two top-ranked teams on the points table at the conclusion of the regular season would go on to compete in a best-of-three finals series to determine a champion.

Dead rubber Dead rubber is a term used in sporting parlance to describe a match in a series where the series result has already been decided by earlier matches. The dead rubber match therefore has no effect on the winner and loser of the series, other than the ...

s were played out in the first two seasons, though such a practice was discontinued thereafter.

2007–present

Coinciding with the introduction of the Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup, the WNCL finals series was reduced to a single match from 2007–08 onward. However, the 2012–13 and 2014–15 seasons utilised an extended four-team playoffs system which included knockout semi-finals.

Team performance

Legend
C = Champions; RU = Runners-up; SF = Semi-finalists; 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th/7th = Ladder position after regular season , - ! 1996–97 !! 1997–98 !! 1998–99 !! 1999–00 !! 2000–01 !! 2001–02 !! 2002–03 !! 2003–04 !! 2004–05 !! 2005–06 !! 2006–07 !! 2007–08 !! 2008–09 !! 2009–10 !! 2010–11 !! 2011–12 !! 2012–13 !! 2013–14 !! 2014–15 !! 2015–16 !! 2016–17 !! 2017–18 !! 2018–19 !! 2019–20 !!

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Notes

References

External links

WNCL
at

WNCL web page with squad lists, results
an
records
(archived January 2012) {{Sports leagues of Australia

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

Australian domestic cricket competitions 1996 establishments in Australia Sports leagues established in 1996