The Women’s Premier League (WPL) is India’s top-tier professional women’s T20 cricket league, organised by the BCCI. The 2027 edition is next up on the calendar, running through January and February 2027. This is an editorial guide to the tournament – the five franchises, the format, the venues and how to follow it – with no tips, odds or predictions.
Key facts at a glance
| Detail | WPL 2027 |
|---|---|
| Competition | Women’s Premier League – India’s top women’s T20 franchise league |
| Organiser | Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) |
| Season | January-February 2027 (dedicated window in the ICC Future Tours Programme) |
| Franchises | 5 city-based teams |
| Format | Double round-robin (each team plays every other twice), followed by playoffs |
| Defending champions | Royal Challengers Bengaluru (2nd title, 2026) |
| Broadcast in India | Star Sports (TV) / JioHotstar (digital) |
| Official site | wplt20.com |
The 5 franchises
| Franchise | City | Home ground | Captain (last known) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Challengers Bengaluru | Bengaluru | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | Smriti Mandhana |
| Mumbai Indians | Mumbai | Wankhede Stadium | Harmanpreet Kaur |
| Delhi Capitals | New Delhi | Arun Jaitley Stadium | Jemimah Rodrigues |
| Gujarat Giants | Vadodara | Baroda Cricket Association Stadium | Ashleigh Gardner |
| UP Warriorz | Lucknow | Ekana Stadium | Meg Lanning |
Squad and captain listings are subject to the annual WPL retention and auction cycle – the confirmed 2027 lineups are announced by the BCCI ahead of the season.
Recent champions
In just four seasons, the WPL has already produced two dominant clubs – Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, with two titles each:
| Season | Champion |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Royal Challengers Bengaluru (2nd title) |
| 2025 | Mumbai Indians (2nd title) |
| 2024 | Royal Challengers Bengaluru |
| 2023 | Mumbai Indians |
How the format works
The WPL uses a double round-robin in the league phase – each of the five franchises plays every other twice, home and away or at neutral venues depending on the season’s hosting model. The top four advance to the playoffs, which run as a short knockout culminating in a single-match final that decides the champion. The league runs across roughly a month, ideal for a compact prime-time viewing window.
Since 2026, the WPL has had a dedicated window in the ICC Future Tours Programme, which means the world’s top international players can commit fully without clashing with national duties – a big part of why the standard of play has risen so quickly.
Records worth knowing
- Nat Sciver-Brunt – most career runs in the WPL (1,348). One of the tournament’s defining players since day one.
- Amelia Kerr – most career wickets (54). New Zealand’s all-rounder has been a key figure across seasons.
- Mumbai Indians & Royal Challengers Bengaluru – two titles each, the only WPL winners so far.
How to follow WPL 2027 in India
The WPL is broadcast in India on Star Sports and streamed digitally on JioHotstar. Live scores, schedules and match centres are on the official wplt20.com site and app. Match times are scheduled to suit prime-time IST viewing, which – alongside the marquee franchises and the top international players – is a big reason the WPL grew a national audience so quickly.
For how cricket fits alongside other sports through a single account, see our cricket coverage page. This guide itself is purely about following the tournament.
A bit of history
The WPL launched in 2023 with a single, transformational auction where multiple players broke previous world-record salaries in women’s cricket. It replaced the earlier Women’s T20 Challenge, which had run as a short exhibition tournament in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. In its first four seasons, the WPL has already established itself as one of the fastest-growing women’s sports leagues in the world – a genuinely open competition (four different final matchups so far), a strong BCCI-organised commercial base, and a broadcast footprint that puts it squarely in Indian prime time. The 2026 title win by Royal Challengers Bengaluru made them joint most-successful franchise alongside Mumbai Indians, with two titles apiece.
How the WPL auction built the league
The WPL’s launch auction in 2023 was a genuine turning point for women’s cricket. Multiple players broke the previous world record for a women’s cricket salary in a single afternoon, and the five franchises together committed sums that had simply never been available in the women’s game before.
That mattered beyond the headlines. Guaranteed professional contracts changed the calculation for players deciding whether to pursue cricket full time, and not only for Indians — the WPL became a destination for overseas internationals whose home boards could not match the terms. Each season since has followed the same rhythm: retentions, a compact auction, then a month of cricket.
The five franchises in detail
| Franchise | Home | Captain | Head coach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Challengers Bengaluru | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | Smriti Mandhana | Malolan Rangarajan |
| Mumbai Indians | Wankhede Stadium | Harmanpreet Kaur | Lisa Keightley |
| Delhi Capitals | Arun Jaitley Stadium | Jemimah Rodrigues | Jonathan Batty |
| Gujarat Giants | Baroda Cricket Association Stadium | Ashleigh Gardner | Michael Klinger |
| UP Warriorz | Ekana Stadium | Meg Lanning | Abhishek Nayar |
Captains and coaching staff are as last confirmed and are subject to the annual retention and auction cycle.
With only five teams, the WPL is the most concentrated of the major franchise leagues — every squad carries a high proportion of international-standard players, and there is very little filler. That is a deliberate design choice: rather than dilute the talent pool across ten teams from the start, the BCCI built a smaller, stronger competition with room to expand later.
Why a dedicated ICC window changed everything
Since 2026 the WPL has occupied a dedicated window in the ICC Future Tours Programme. In practical terms, that means the tournament no longer competes with international fixtures for player availability. Overseas stars can commit to a full season without choosing between their franchise and their country.
For a young league this is close to decisive. The single biggest constraint on franchise cricket outside the IPL has always been scheduling conflict; securing a protected slot in the global calendar put the WPL in a category shared by very few competitions. It is the clearest signal of how seriously the sport’s governing bodies now take it.
The players who have defined it
- Nat Sciver-Brunt — the leading run-scorer in WPL history with 1,348 runs, and one of the tournament’s most consistent match-winners since the first season.
- Amelia Kerr — the leading wicket-taker with 54, the New Zealand all-rounder having been a fixture of the competition throughout.
- Smriti Mandhana — captain of the reigning champions and one of the faces of the league’s growth in India.
- Harmanpreet Kaur — India’s international captain, leading Mumbai Indians to two titles.
Four seasons have produced only two winners — Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, two apiece — but each final has featured a different combination of teams, and the margins have generally been narrow. For a league still finding its feet, that balance between recognisable champions and genuine competitiveness is close to ideal.
What a WPL season looks like
The WPL is deliberately compact. Five teams, a double round-robin, then playoffs — the whole competition runs across roughly a month, which keeps it dense and easy to follow from the first match to the final.
| Phase | Format |
|---|---|
| League phase | Double round-robin — each team plays the other four twice (8 matches per side) |
| Playoffs | Top four advance; a short knockout series |
| Final | Single match to decide the champion |
With only five franchises, there is nowhere to hide. Every side plays every other twice, so the table is a genuine reflection of form rather than of an easy draw, and a single bad week can cost a playoff place. It also means fixtures between the strongest teams come around frequently rather than once a season.
Why the WPL grew so fast
Four seasons is a short time to build a league that commands prime-time attention, and several factors combined.
- Franchise recognition. The teams carry names Indian audiences already knew — Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Delhi Capitals — which gave the competition an instant identity.
- Genuine star power. India’s leading players alongside the best international cricketers, in squads concentrated enough that every match features multiple world-class performers.
- Broadcast investment. Star Sports on television and JioHotstar digitally, with scheduling built for Indian prime time rather than treated as filler programming.
- A protected calendar slot. The dedicated ICC window from 2026 removed the scheduling conflicts that hold back most franchise competitions.
Underneath all of that is the simplest factor: the cricket has been good. Close finals, genuine rivalries and a level of play that has risen visibly across four seasons. Nothing sustains a new league like the matches themselves being worth watching.
Where the league goes next
The obvious question is expansion. Five teams is a deliberately conservative start — it keeps talent concentrated and standards high while the league establishes itself. The IPL began with eight and grew to ten over a decade and a half, and a similar path for the WPL would be unsurprising, though the BCCI has given no fixed timetable.
The other direction of growth is the domestic pipeline. The most meaningful long-term measure of the WPL will not be viewership but whether it produces a deeper pool of Indian players ready for international cricket — young cricketers who came through a system where a professional career in women’s cricket was a realistic ambition from the start. On that measure the league is still young, but the structure is now in place in a way it simply never was before 2023.
Following the WPL from India
The WPL is the easiest tournament on our coverage to follow live, for the simple reason that it is played in India for an Indian audience. Matches are scheduled for prime-time IST, with no time-zone arithmetic required.
A compact month-long competition also means it is realistic to follow properly rather than dipping in occasionally. With five teams and a double round-robin, every side plays every other twice — so a single season gives you a complete picture of the league rather than a fragment of it.
- Television: Star Sports carries the tournament in India.
- Digital: JioHotstar streams matches.
- Official: wplt20.com carries schedules, points tables and match centres.
- Timing: fixtures are scheduled for Indian evening viewing.
If you are new to women’s cricket, the WPL is a good entry point precisely because the talent is so concentrated. With only five squads sharing the best Indian and overseas players, almost every match features multiple international-standard performers.
The competition that established most of these ideas is WBBL 2026-27, which runs from late October and remains the benchmark for women’s franchise cricket.
This is an editorial guide – schedule, teams and venues – and does not offer betting tips, odds or predictions. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over; please play responsibly and set your own limits. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state – check the rules where you live. Fixtures can change; always confirm against the official tournament schedule.