Women's Big Bash League (WBBL)

The Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) is Australia's premier T20 cricket competition for women. The competition features the same franchises as the men's BBL and is held before the men's tournament annually.

📜 Women's Big Bash League History

First played in 2015/16, the WBBL generally takes place towards the beginning of the Australian summer, directly before the men's BBL. Groundbreaking in many ways, the tournament was one of the first major women's domestic T20 competitions to embrace the Indian Premier League/Big Bash League city-based franchise model. 

WBBL has grown in popularity over the years, and helped to increase interest in women's cricket as a result. In 2018, ESPNcricinfo named WBBL 4 as one of its 25 Moments That Changed Cricket, dubbing it "the tournament that kickstarted a renaissance." With matches taking place at a wide range of venues (both small and large) each year, WBBL games are regularly praised for their relaxed and family-friendly atmosphere. 

As of 2024, Brisbane Heat, Sydney Sixers, Adelaide Strikers, and Sydney Thunder are historically the WBBL's most successful teams, having won the tournament twice each. The competition's ongoing success was reflected in the announcement that WBBL 9 would feature the first standalone Women's Big Bash matches to be played at 2 of Australia's largest and most famous venues – Sydney Cricket Ground and Melbourne Cricket Ground.

💯 Women's Big Bash League Format & Scoring

The WBBL is a T20 tournament. This means that, in each match, both teams receive 20 overs to score as many runs as possible. The team with the most runs after both sides have batted is the winner. Matches generally last around 3 hours.

The structure of the WBBL is as follows:

Group Stage

The first round of the WBBL is a round robin group stage, where all teams play each other twice, home and away. 2 points is awarded for a win, 0 for a loss, and 1 for a game deemed a "no result" due to issues like bad weather. After all round robin fixtures have been played, the top 4 teams with the most points advance to the playoff stage of the competition, while the remaining sides are eliminated.

Playoff Stage

The team that finishes top of the league in the round robin stage of the tournament advances directly to the Final, while teams in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are forced to go through preliminary knockout matches.

Fixtures for the playoff stage of the WBBL are as follows:

The Knockout: 3rd-placed team v 4th-placed team. The winner remains in the competition and the loser is eliminated.

The Challenger: Winner of The Knockout v 2nd-placed team. The winner advances to the Final. The loser is eliminated.

The Final: 1st-placed team v Winner of The Challenger. The victor is named Women's Big Bash League Champion.