Women’s sport can often be dismissed as an inferior product by those that don’t understand or appreciate it.

Only in the last few years has the media begun to give it anything but a passing mention.

That began to change when Jessica Ennis struck gold at London 2012 and the profile of women’s sport was raised further thanks to England reaching the semi-finals of the football World Cup last year.

There is still a long way to go though and that is why I am so excited by the prospect of the inaugural Women’s Super League this summer.

Straight away I should declare a vested interest as my daughter Georgia will be competing in the competition after being confirmed in the Southern Vipers squad yesterday.

Now I’m not the type to blatantly use a newspaper column to sing the praises of a loved one - did I mention Georgia scored a century in her first game of the season for Loughborough this week? - but it is a rare example of where women’s sport is leading the way.

The tournament has the potential to be a huge with top players from all around the world taking part alongside England internationals and the best young players in this country.

The ECB are often accused of not being pro-active enough but the WSL could turn out to be a game-changer not only for women’s cricket in this country but for the men’s game too.

I’ve no doubt that if the tournament is successful then it will open the door for the introduction of a similar franchise-based men’s Twenty20 competition.

The traditionalists may shudder at such a suggestion but the sooner we all get our heads around the fact we have fallen so far behind the rest of the world on this front the better.

You just need to look at the popularity of the IPL, the Big Bash and the Caribbean Premier League to see where we are going wrong. They attract massive crowds, generate huge amounts of income and bring together the biggest stars in the game to put on one hell of a show.

Why don’t we have something similar in England? The answer is because we have too many stakeholders – ie the 18 first class counties – who are understandably keen to protect their own interests rather than looking at the bigger picture.

Of course they don’t want to be sidelined. That would happen if the franchises were just based at the Test match grounds as has been mooted but I have a better idea.

Why not pair each county up with another – ideally neighbouring – one to make nine combined teams so they all have a stake in the competition and supporters have an affinity with the teams?

The ECB have shown the way forward with the WSL and they need to be similarly bold to revive men’s Twenty20 cricket.