Indian domestic season for women's cricket to start with 50-over tournament from 11 March

New Delhi: The women’s domestic cricket season will begin with a 50-over tournament from 11 March, the BCCI has informed its affiliated units. A letter from BCCI Secretary Jay Shah has given the details — including the full schedule of the matches. The tournament will be held across six venues — Surat, Rajkot, Jaipur, Indore, Chennai and Bengaluru. The teams will have to assemble at their respective venues by 4 March and will need to have three COVID-19 negative results after tests on 4, 6 and 8 March, before entering the respective bio-bubbles. “The teams are required to assemble in their respective host cities on March 4th 2021, and will need to undergo COVID-19 testing procedures and quarantine in accordance with the state regulatory authorities and the BCCI SOPs,” Shah wrote in the letter. Each of the five elite groups will have six teams each, while the plate group has seven. The five elite-group toppers qualify directly for the knockouts, while the three next-best-placed teams in terms of points earned will join them. The last of these qualifiers will play a pre-quarter-final against the topper of the plate group to get into the final eight. The quarter-finals will be held on 29 March, and semi-finals on 1 April. The final will be played on 4 April. The venues for the knockouts will be announced later. Bengal are defending champions.