The competition features five teams, each representing a region (or "zone") of India: Central Zone, East Zone, North Zone, South Zone and West Zone. Central Zone are the most successful team in the history of the competition, winning the first three editions. The holders are North Zone, who won the most recent competition in 2017–18.
History
The competition began in February 2015, as the Senior Women's Cricket Inter Zonal Two Day Game, with the five zonal teams playing each other once in two-day matches, all held in Kolkata. No matches were won outright, but points were awarded for leading on the first innings of the match. Central Zone were the inaugural winners of the competition, winning three of their four matches on first innings.[1]
The following season, 2015–16, the format was changed to three-day matches, and the tournament was held in Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh. Central Zone were again the champions, winning one match outright and another two on first innings.[2] Central Zone won their third title in 2016–17, when the tournament was held in Chhattisgarh, winning two of their four matches.[3]
Till the 2017–18 season, matches in the tournament were played using a three-day format (apart from the first season, in which matches were two-days). The five teams playws each other once in a round-robin format, therefore playing four matches in a season. All five teams competed in one league, with the team finishing top at the end of the season being crowned the champions.
Teams were awarded 6 points for a win, 3 points for a tie and 0 points for a loss. If a match was drawn, the team that with the highest score at the end of the first innings received 3 points, whilst the team with the lower score receives one point. Both teams received 1 point if both first innings were not completed, the two scores were tied, or if the match was abandoned. If two teams were joint on points in the table, the tiebreakers were most wins and then net run rate.[5]
