BCCI announces Reliance Jio as title sponsor for 2020 Women's T20 Challenge

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday announced Jio as the title sponsor for the upcoming 2020 edition of the Women's T20 Challenge.

The partnership will also have the support of Reliance Foundation Education and Sports For All (RF ESA). This is a historic partnership, as for the first time a sponsor has signed with BCCI exclusively for the women's matches.

"As BCCI grows the game of cricket across all formats, one key area of focus has been to grow the women's game. We hope the Jio Women's T20 Challenge will inspire more young girls to take up the sport and give parents the confidence that playing cricket is a great career opportunity for their daughters," Sourav Ganguly, BCCI President said in an official release.

"We look forward to seeing the great women's sports stories that will be shared as a result of this initiative. We want to support and create concrete ways to grow the pipeline of women's talent in Cricket. Our goal with the Women's T20 Challenge is to build a pathway to a dedicated Women's' IPL. Signing an exclusive Title Sponsor for the Women's T20 Challenge, is a great testament to the property, allowing it to be self-sustainable. We believe Jio and RF ESA as Title Sponsors will be strong partners for the Women's T20 Challenge," Jay Shah, Secretary of BCCI, said in an official release.

The Women's T20 Challenge will be played from November 4-9 here in Sharjah and the competition will be contested between three teams -- Trailblazers, Supernovas, and Velocity.

Mithali Raj will be leading Velocity while Trailblazers and Supernovas will be led by Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur respectively.

For the Women's Challenger Trophy, all the matches will start from 7:30 PM IST except the second match between Velocity and Trailblazers as that will be played from 3:30 IST in the afternoon.

On October 11, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had announced the squads and schedule for the upcoming Women's T20 Challenge. Last year's finalist Supernovas will be taking on Velocity in the opening game on November 4.

The squads for all three teams are as follows:

Trailblazers -- Smriti Mandhana (c), Deepti Sharma, Punam Raut, Richa Ghosh, D Hemlatha, Nuzhat Parween, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Harleen Deol, Jhulan Goswami, Simaran Dil Bahadur, Salma Khatun, Sophie Ecclestone, Natthakan Chantham, Deandra Dottin, Kashvee Gautam.

Velocity -- Mithali Raj, Shafali Verma, Veda Krishnamurthy, Sushma Verma, Ekta Bisht, Mansi Joshi, Shikha Pandey, Devika Vaidya, Sushree Dibyadarshini, Manali Dakshini, Leigh Kasperek, Danielle Wyatt, Sune Luus, Jahanara Alam, M Anagha.

Supernovas -- Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Jemimah Rodrigues, Chamari Atapattu, Priya Punia, Anuja Patil, Radha Yadav, Taniya Bhatia, Shashikala Sriwardene, Poonam Yadav, Shakera Selman, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Ayushi Soni, Ayabonga Khaka, Muskan Malik.