Jemimah Rodrigues credits BCCI for starting Women’s T20 Challenge  

India batter Jemimah Rodrigues has stated that the BCCI has taken the correct decision in starting the women’s T20 Challenge as the tournament serves the best exposure for the players to handle pressure in tough situations.



“The BCCI have done a good thing by starting the women’s IPL. They have understood the importance for us to play the IPL because that is going to help us,” Rodrigues was quoted as saying to Sportskeeda. “As I said you need to deliver under pressure and women’s IPL is one of the best ways to get that experience how to handle pressure, how to play in front of the crowd, under the lights, in front of the opposition.”



India’s performance graph in the last three years has been on a rising note – they played the finals of the 2017 World Cup and 2020 T20 World Cup –but failed at the final hurdle on both the occasions. The 19-year-old believes the IPL style t20 tournament would provide the players in developing the women’s game in the country and will eventually help towards glory.



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“You get good quality games and then international cricket comes afterward. But there is a lot of gap between games and when you play the IPL you get to develop a different level of standard on offer. When you play international cricket you already have so much experience that is going to help your team get better," she said.



The Women’s T20 Challenge started in 2018 with two teams before it converted into a three-team affair last year. This year a fourth team was to be added but due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it had to be postponed. However, BCCI has declared last month that the event will be happening between November 1 and 10, during the men’s IPL play-offs in UAE.



“So there were plans this year that we would have a proper IPL, at least four to five teams this year but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we couldn’t help it. So now we will be playing the exhibition games in the UAE so yes looking forward to that,” she said.



Jemimah has so far scored 930 T20I runs at an average of 27.35 and has six half-centuries to her name.