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 overs. The wider rules and playing conditions are usually the same for both the ...

competition in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the 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. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is En ...

operated by the

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the 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 and County Cricket Board, ...

(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 are a women's cricket team that represent the South of England. The Vipers wear an orange and black kit and play their home matches at the Ageas Bowl and the County Cricket Ground, Hove. They are currently coached by forme ...

and

Surrey Stars The Surrey Stars were an English women's Twenty20 cricket team based in South London that competed in the English women's Twenty20 competition, the Women's Cricket Super League. The Stars played their home matches at The Oval and Woodbridge Road ...

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 (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 inn ...

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 country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

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 The Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy is an English women's cricket domestic competition, named after former England captain Rachael Heyhoe Flint, Baroness Heyhoe-Flint, who died in 2017. The first edition of the tournament took place during August ...

and the

Charlotte Edwards Cup The Charlotte Edwards Cup, initially named the Women's Regional T20, is an English women's cricket Twenty20 domestic competition organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board. The first edition of the tournament took place in 2021. The tourna ...

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 Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of Londo ...

in 2016 and at the County Cricket Ground,

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th ...

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. It broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 LW ...

''. In 2017,

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

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, commonly known as Kia (, ; formerly known as Kyungsung Precision Industry and Kia Motors Corporation), is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's second lar ...

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 Twenty20 cricket leagues

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 st ...

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