Defending champs MI to take on RCB in WPL Season 4 opener on Jan 9
Mumbai (PTI): Harmanpreet Kaur-led defending champions Mumbai Indians will face 2024 winners Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the opening match of the fourth Women's Premier League on January 9 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
In a first for the tournament, the WPL final will not be held on a weekend, with the summit clash scheduled for a Thursday (February 5), likely to avoid a clash with the men’s T20 World Cup, which begins the same week in India and Sri Lanka. The T20 World Cup opens with a match between Pakistan and Netherlands on February 7 (Saturday) in Colombo.
The 28-day, 22-match WPL will be played across two venues.
DY Patil Stadium, which witnessed India’s maiden women’s ICC global title -- the ODI World Cup win over South Africa earlier this month -- will host the first 11 matches, including afternoon double-headers on January 10 and 17, as per the schedule announced on Saturday.
All the remaining games in this leg will be evening fixtures.
The league will then shift to the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara, which will stage the remaining 11 matches, including the Eliminator on February 2 and the final on February 5.
This is also the first time the WPL will be played in a January-February window as the previous three editions were held in February–March, just before the IPL, often overlapping with international fixtures.
The format remains unchanged: with the five teams -- Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, UP Warriorz, Gujarat Giants and Delhi Capitals -- to play each other twice in a double round-robin.
The top team progresses straight to the final, while the second and third-placed sides face off in the Eliminator for the remaining spot.
Mumbai Indians have won two titles in three seasons, with RCB lifting the trophy in 2024.
Delhi Capitals have finished runners-up in each of the three editions, while Gujarat Giants and UP Warriorz are yet to reach a final.
Ten days after the WPL concludes, the Indian women's team will embark on an all-format tour of Australia, featuring three T20Is, three ODIs and a Test from February 15-March 9.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
