Swing and a hit India's WPL enjoys spectacular early success - and this is just the beginning

Giant outdoor advertisements featuring women cricketers occupying pride of place anywhere in India is a rarity. Even more so in bustling junctures across the country's commercial and entertainment hub, Mumbai, where time and space are ever-shrinking commodities.

- Annesha Ghosh

But a seven-storey wallscape with an artwork of the Mumbai Indians' trio Harmanpreet Kaur, Pooja Vastrakar and Nat SciverBrunt has adorned a 20-storey skyscraper near the busy Haji Ali Junction in the southern part of the western Indian city since the start of the month.

And so have billboards, featuring Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Sneh Rana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma - that quintet being the cream of women's cricket talent in the country - in places of prominence, railway stations included, in Mumbai and, some 30 kilometres away, in New Mumbai.

The reason: the inaugural five-team Women's Premier League (WPL), where all these established names, headlining an overall pool of 87 uncapped and international cricketers, have been in action across the two host cities, Mumbai and New Mumbai, since the tournament kicked off on 4 March.

If the 20-match league stage of the WPL, the second-most expensive cricket league in the world after the men's marquee domestic franchise tournament, the Indian Premier League, is anything to go by, the visibility the competition has brought the women's game in the country is unlike anything previously imagined.