Some of the best female cricketers in the world are set to play in the event, which aims to promote fair and equal opportunities for all people no matter their identified gender or where they are from
The 2023 FairBreak Global Invitational T20 tournament starts in Hong Kong on April 3.
Some of the best female cricketers in the world are set to play in the event, which aims to promote fair and equal opportunities for all people no matter their identified gender or where they are from.
There are six teams that will compete in the competition, The Warriors, The Tornadoes, Team Spirit, The Sapphires, The K-Man Falcons and The Barmy Army Team.
Each team will play each other once before the top four teams go through to a playoff stage with the final taking place on April 16.
The tournament is run in association with Cricket Hong Kong and all the games will be hosted at Kowloon Cricket Club.
With 90 players competing from over 36 countries, it hopes to raise the profile of the women's game globally.
The likes of Hayley Matthews (Warriors), Phoebe Litchfield (Warriors), Katherine Sciver-Brunt (Sapphires), Shabnim Ismail (Sapphires), and Dane van Niekerk (Tornadoes) will be joined on the field by players from across the world, including 12 local Hong Kong cricketers.
Action from the Fairbreak Invitiational in the UAE in 2022 [AFP via Getty Images]
The event was successfully launched last year in Dubai, where Stafanie Taylor captained the Tornadoes to victory in the final against Suzie Bates' Falcons.
Chamari Athapaththu, the current Sri Lankan T20 captain, top scored in 2022 with 313 runs at an average of 52.16. She will be returning for the Falcons this year as they look to go one better.
This year's line-up is looking just as strong as last year, with Amanda-Jade Wellington joining up with The Warriors for the first time.
While it promises to be an exciting two weeks of cricket, the message and motivation behind it is much more important. It is a competition that was almost a decade in the making and has finally received ICC accreditation.
The company FairBreak was founded in 2013 by former Australian captain Lisa Sthalekar and her manager Shaun Martyn.
Despite playing at the top of the game for many years, and reportedly being the highest earning women's cricketer in the world at the time, Sthalekar still needed to have a full-time job in order to afford to keep playing cricket. This was not an issue in the men's game.
The initial proposal that they had was the Women's International Cricket League, which would have been a similar format to the Indian Premier League. However, after a number of years of negotiations they were unable to get the backing of the ICC or the national cricket boards to make it a viable tournament.
The company has grown and changed since 2013 and it is now dedicated to driving gender equality in several industries, but still doing so by using the power of cricket.
Action from the Fairbreak Invitiational in the UAE in 2022 [AFP via Getty Images]
Women's cricket is undoubtedly on the rise, the successful first season of the Women's Premier League in India proves as such, but there is still a long way to go.
The FairBreak Invitational is intended to put a spotlight on cricketers from around the world that have not had the opportunities that franchise cricket offers.
This year FairBreak will be running a second tournament to be held in the USA in September.
With the first ever Major League Cricket competition set to start for the men's game in 2022, this will be a good opportunity to raise the profile of the women's game in the country.
As with football in the USA, it was the women's side of the sport that grew much quicker and gained popularity faster than the men's game.
Last year’s competition was set to be staged in Hong Kong but had to be moved to Dubai due to Covid-19 restrictions.
English fast bowler Sciver-Brunt is set to feature in Hong Kong for The Sapphires, the team she represented in Dubai last year. She understands that it is more than just a cricket tournament.
She told FairBreak: "It's a great opportunity for players from all over the world to get together and share experiences and skill sets to help further each other and get more women a step further towards their dreams."
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