ACT Cricket yesterday launched its local men's and women's seasons, as well as this year's international season which will include four world-class women's games and the Prime Ministers XI.

Manuka Oval will host two Women's Cricket World Cup games in March next year as well as two Australian games in November.

The Southern Stars will play India twice at Manuka on November 8 and 9 as part of a warm-up tour, allowing Australian vice-captain Lisa Sthalekar to play her first game back in Canberra since her debut 10 years ago.

Sthalekar was in Canberra yesterday and said she hoped the World Cup would be a positive step for women's cricket in Australia.

''I think it will, we are very fortunate here in that we have so many successful teams so going up against all these successful male teams in the media is a little bit hard,'' she said.

''But by having a global event like the World Cup it's also going to be the first time the ICC are running it so you are bringing in all those global partners and television crews it really gives us an opportunity to showcase the women's game.

''I think the ACT do a wonderful job in supporting women's cricket and they have wonderful people behind the scenes pushing for women's cricket and to have these type of fixtures is a credit to all of them.''

And locally the female cricketers in the ACT are getting serious as well.

The women's Premier League was started last year, with four teams of the best players in the ACT and Riverina, for a short six- week competition.

This year it's been cut to three teams two from Canberra and one from the Riverina to streamline the program.

''The idea behind that is to narrow the base a little bit to make sure we have the very best players playing and also supporting club cricket at the same time,'' ACT Meteors' coach Martin Garoni said.