One of the features of the men’s Indian Premier League (IPL) in the past three seasons has been a rapid pick-up in the scoring rate. It was shaped by taking greater risks in the first six overs, when fielding restrictions were in place, and via shot-making that fetched four or six runs. Some similar patterns are on display in the ongoing Women’s Premier League (WPL), the women’s equivalent of the city-franchise-based T20 cricket league. At roughly the halfway stage of the 2026 season, the average run rate this year is the highest across its four editions.
Mumbai Indians’ captain Harmanpreet Kaur plays a shot during the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2026 match against Gujarat Giants (PTI)Scoring gains
The WPL is a smaller version of the IPL. While the IPL has 10 teams, the WPL has five teams, resulting in fewer matches. While the 2025 IPL saw 74 matches being played, the WPL in each of its four seasons is a run of 22 matches. Further, while the IPL is mostly truly played on a ‘home’ and ‘away’ concept, and thus across several grounds that are a recurrent feature, the WPL is a moving tournament played across fewer and designated venues. For example, there are just two venues in the 2026 season. In terms of the scoring rate, the third WPL season in 2025 was a breakout of sorts. For the first time, the average run rate in the WPL crossed 8 runs per over, and ended at 8.08. The women cricketers have added further to those gains in the 2026 season. After match 12 of the 22-match season, the average run rate in the WPL stood at 8.47 runs per over.
Pushing Boundaries
As many as 11 of those first 12 matches were played at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. All the remaining matches are being played at Vadodara. The first three matches in Vadodara have yielded a lower haul of runs, as compared to DY Patil, and thus the final season average has several dynamics to contend with and could even drift lower. For now, the women batters are chasing a sense of greater possibilities. One expression of that is the number of boundaries and sixers they have struck. Both these metrics have seen a marked upswing in both the 2025 and 2026 WPL seasons. For the 2026 season, which comes in the wake of the Indian women winning the ODI World Cup, the average of about 39 boundaries and 11 sixers per match is the highest ever in the WPL.