Senior Women Multi-Day Trophy 2027 BCCI Format Evolution

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has confirmed the launch of a new senior women's multi-day domestic trophy starting in the 2027-28 season, with the announcement made by BCCI secretary Jay Shah at the apex council meeting on May 15, 2026. The new tournament is a three-day format, structured around the 32 state associations that participate in BCCI women's domestic cricket, with the top 12 sides competing across three pools and a knockout stage. The format has been explicitly designed as a pathway to Test cricket for India Women, who have played only 13 Tests in their history but have committed to a return to the Test format under the new ICC FTP cycle. The selectors have been briefed on the new pipeline structure.

The format details

The new BCCI women's multi-day tournament will run from late October 2027 to early January 2028, with three pools of four sides each playing six round-robin matches per pool. The top two from each pool advance to a knockout quarter-final stage, with the final scheduled as a four-day match (one day longer than the regular tournament fixtures) to test the Test-format endurance of finalists. The format includes a 90-over per day requirement, a new-ball replacement option at 60 overs, and DRS available from the quarter-final stage onwards. The match-fee structure has been set at INR 60,000 per match for the regular tournament and INR 90,000 for the final, which is a significant increase on the current BCCI women's domestic structure.

Why the multi-day format matters

India Women have played 13 Test matches in their history, with one of the longest format gaps being from 2014 to 2021 when no women's Tests were scheduled. The BCCI's decision to expand the Test format commitment under the 2027-31 ICC FTP cycle requires a structured domestic pathway, which the existing one-day and T20 trophies cannot provide. The multi-day format gives India Women's selectors a structured environment to assess endurance, technique against the older ball, and Test-format batting build patterns. The pathway also matters for the next generation of Indian women's cricket, with the under-19 setup producing technically strong players who currently have no multi-day format to graduate into.

Who benefits from the format

Three groups benefit. First, the senior India Women's squad, which gets a structured domestic format that mirrors the international fixtures they will play. Second, the under-23 development pool, which is currently scattered across the state associations without a clear pathway upward. Third, the state associations themselves, which get a higher-revenue domestic tournament with bigger broadcast value than the current one-day BCCI women's structure. The match-fee increase is structurally important; the BCCI has been criticised in the past two years for the women's domestic match-fee being significantly lower than the men's equivalent. The new tournament does not yet achieve parity but it moves the needle. Our women's ashes 2027 preview shows the international fixture window that the pathway will feed into.

The selectors' brief and squad-build

The BCCI women's selection committee has been briefed by chairman Devika Palshikar on the new tournament structure. The brief includes three priority areas. First, identification of the top 25 players across the domestic structure for a centralised contract list that runs alongside the tournament. Second, structured rotation across the regular tournament and the international fixture windows, which will require coordination between the state associations and the senior selectors. Third, mentorship roles for the senior India Women's players (Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues) within the tournament, with playing appearances expected in the regular tournament rounds. The mentorship model is similar to what the Sheffield Shield does in Australia and is a structural innovation for BCCI women's cricket.

What changes from here

Three scenarios. First, the tournament launches successfully in October 2027, India Women's Test format build accelerates, and the multi-day domestic pathway becomes the new norm. Second, the tournament runs into financial or scheduling friction with the existing WPL window and the state-association calendar, requiring adjustments for the 2028-29 cycle. Third, the BCCI extends the tournament to a four-day format from 2028 onwards, which would be the closest possible match to international Test cricket. The most likely outcome is option one, with option three following in the 2029-30 cycle. The wider impact is on India Women's Test cricket; the new pathway likely produces three to four Test-quality batters and two Test-quality bowlers across the first three editions of the tournament. The india women test return wider review covers the format-build strategy beyond the domestic structure.