We would like to extend our best wishes for this new beginning to all the successful bidders and also congratulate the BCCI on bringing the Women's Premier League to life. It is a huge step forward for Indian cricket and will prove to be a game changer for women's sports across the globe.
At the Royals, we have been deeply committed to the women's game and that will continue. We are significantly investing in our new talent hunt 'Cricket Ka Ticket' to find the best female cricketers from across the country and provide them with a development pathway to the new Women's Premier League and hopefully the India team, while our High-Performance Centre in Nagpur continues to serve as a hub for both female and male athletes through world-class coaching to aid in their overall progression.
With the objective of strengthening women's grassroots cricket even further, we will also continue to invest in organising and expanding competitions such as the Rajasthan Royals Women's Cup which can prove to be a stepping stone for potential female cricketing superstars of Indian cricket. Our intention is to keep scaling these investments and also look at other avenues to enable the growth of women's cricket in India and take it to the next level.
That being said, we are obviously disappointed not to have won the bid for a team in this historic inaugural season of the Women's Premier League. We always knew there was going to be a lot of competition given the IPL's success in the men's format, but still were hopeful of securing a women's franchise to extend the Royals Family and hope there will be an opportunity to do so in the future.