But Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland warned against a rush towards paying the players a full-time wage, claiming many of the women enjoyed balancing cricket with other careers.

Channel 10 reported the Melbourne Stars v Sydney Thunder match, which started at 6.15pm, had averaged 432,000 viewers, peaking at 637,000.

It was a 67 per cent increase on the average figures from last year, when some games were broadcast to the network's secondary channel.

Sutherland said he was pleased with the result, not only because it peaked at a good number, but because there was not much of a difference between that figure and the average.

""That means people are watching it and they're watching it all the way through," he said.

The quality of cricket had improved significantly over the past year, Sutherland said.

"When I cast my mind back to the first games of last year, there were a few clunky things," he said.

"The games I've seen so far [this season], it's up a notch."

Sutherland said the higher quality cricket was due to the better profile of the WBBL competition and the fact that more women were now being paid to play cricket, if only on a part-time basis.

That had given them time to work harder on their game.

But Sutherland said some women playing in the WBBL may not want to become full-time professional cricketers, because they had already developed their careers in other fields and were enjoying doing both.

"A woman in their mid-to-late 20s and they've studied and they've got a career."

"If you do to a full-time professional situation for them... it's one or the other."