The Women's Cricket Super League (WCSL), known as the Kia Super League (KSL) for sponsorship reasons, was a semi-professional

women's Twenty20 cricket Women's Twenty20 is the use of the Twenty20 match format in women's cricket. In a Twenty20 match, the two teams bat for a single innings each, of a maximum of 20 over (cricket), overs. The wider rules and playing conditions are usually the same ...

competition in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

operated by the

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board, aka ECB, is the Sports governing body, national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test ...

(ECB). The competition featured six franchise teams, partnered with a variety of county teams and boards and universities, and was envisaged as a means to bridge the gap between amateur domestic cricket and the increasingly professional international game. The WCSL launched in 2016, with each team playing five group stage matches in a round-robin format, followed by a finals day; this was increased to ten group matches in 2018, following the ECB abandoning their initial plans to expand the tournament by also incorporating a 50-over competition. The WCSL ended after the 2019 season, ahead of the intended launch of the ECB's new format, The Hundred, and its city-based men's and women's franchises. Western Storm ended the competition as the most successful team with two titles, in 2017 and 2019.

Southern Vipers The Southern Vipers were a women's cricket team that represented the South of England. The Vipers wore an orange and black kit and primarily played their home matches at the Rose Bowl and the County Ground, Hove. They were coached by former ...

and Surrey Stars won one title each, in 2016 and 2018 respectively.

History

The

(ECB) announced their plans for the Women's Cricket Super League in June 2015, stating they would invest £3 million over four years. The competition would launch with six teams playing in a

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

format, with the initial intention to add a 50-over competition in 2017. The ECB received 28 applications to host teams in the first stage of bidding, with the process subsequently moving to an interview stage. The six successful bids were announced in January 2016. The ECB hoped that the WCSL would develop as a semi-professional competition, with the intention of bridging the gap between the amateur Women's County Championship and international cricket, for which

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

players are centrally contracted as professionals. It was decided in advance of the 2017 season that the planned 50-over competition would not after all take place, with the ECB and the franchises preferring to concentrate their resources on developing the existing Twenty20 format. For the 2018 season, the group stage of the competition was doubled in size, with each of the teams now facing each other home and away for a total of ten group matches. In 2018, the ECB announced the planned launch of The Hundred in 2020, a new hundred-ball format competition to be played by newly-created city-based franchises with both men's and women's teams. In conjunction with this, it was also announced that the WCSL would be scrapped after the 2019 season. It was replaced with a new regional domestic structure for women's cricket in England and Wales, encompassing The Hundred, the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and the

Charlotte Edwards Cup The Charlotte Edwards Cup, initially named the Women's Regional T20, was an English and Welsh women's cricket Twenty20 domestic competition, held annually from 2021 to 2024. The tournament was named after England's former captain and most capped ...

Teams

The ECB announced the six hosts for the WCSL in January 2016, with hosting rights awarded for four years of the competition, 2016 to 2019 inclusive. The hosts and partners included seven First-class counties, five

minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

and three universities. Team names, along with the fixtures and venues for the 2016 season, were announced in February 2016. The allocation of England players to the teams was announced in April 2016, with overseas player allocations being announced later that month. Charlotte Edwards

Tournament results

Format

Matches were played in a

format. Teams played each other in a round robin, from which the top three teams qualified for Finals Day at a neutral venue. In 2016 and 2017 teams played each other once, and in 2018 and 2019 teams played each other twice. The second and third placed teams then met in the semi-final for the right to face the first placed team in the final. Finals Day was staged at the County Cricket Ground,

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Colchester and Southend-on-Sea. It is located north-east of London ...

in 2016 and at the County Cricket Ground,

Hove Hove ( ) is a seaside resort in East Sussex, England. Alongside Brighton, it is one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove. Originally a fishing village surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th century in respon ...

from 2017 to 2019.

Media coverage

The 2016 tournament was not televised, but seven group matches and the finals day were broadcast live on BBC radio's ''

Test Match Special ''Test Match Special'' (also known as ''TMS'') is a British sports radio programme, originally, as its name implies, dealing exclusively with Test cricket matches, but currently covering any professional cricket. The programme is available on BB ...

''. In 2017,

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

broadcast eight matches live – six group stage matches as part of double-headers with a men's T20 Blast match, followed by both finals day matches. They broadcast twelve live matches from the expanded 2018 competition.

Sponsorship

The ECB announced a two-year title sponsorship agreement for the WCSL with

Kia Motors Kia Corporation (, formerly known as Kyungsung Precision Industry (京城精密工業) and Kia Motors Corporation) is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, ...

in March 2016, as a result of which the competition was known as the Kia Super League. The deal was extended to cover the final two years of the competition in 2017.

Notes

References

External links

Official website
{{Twenty20 leagues Women's cricket competitions in England English domestic cricket competitions 2016 establishments in England Women's Twenty20 cricket competitions Defunct cricket leagues

Cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

Sports leagues established in 2016 2019 disestablishments in England Sports leagues disestablished in 2019