The WCSL launched in 2016, with each team playing five group stage matches in a round-robin format, followed by a finals day; this was increased to ten group matches in 2018, following the ECB abandoning their initial plans to expand the tournament by also incorporating a 50-over competition.

The WCSL ended after the 2019 season, ahead of the intended launch of the ECB's new format, The Hundred, and its city-based men's and women's franchises.

[4] The ECB hoped that the WCSL would develop as a semi-professional competition, with the intention of bridging the gap between the amateur Women's County Championship and international cricket, for which England players are centrally contracted as professionals.

[5] It was decided in advance of the 2017 season that the planned 50-over competition would not after all take place, with the ECB and the franchises preferring to concentrate their resources on developing the existing Twenty20 format.

[7] In 2018, the ECB announced the planned launch of The Hundred in 2020, a new hundred-ball format competition to be played by newly-created city-based franchises with both men's and women's teams.

[9] It was replaced with a new regional domestic structure for women's cricket in England and Wales, encompassing The Hundred, the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and the Charlotte Edwards Cup.