Revolution in women's cricket as ICC announces expansion of Women's T20 World Cup to 16 teams by 2030

International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday (22nd July) took a step forward in the development of women's cricket. The governing body during an annual meeting approved an expansion of the Women's T20 World Cup to 16 teams in the 2030 edition of the tournament in the wake of equity between the men’s and women’s games.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is taking every possible step to develop women's cricket. The governing body since the last decade has taken a lot of positive steps. The T20 World Cup has seen a lot of growth in the number of teams. In the inaugural edition, there were only 8 teams and then it grew to 10 in 2016.

The T20 World Cup 2026 will see two more teams in it. The tournament which will be played in England will see 12 teams. The Board of the International Cricket Council also confirmed that the qualification cut-off date for the 2026 edition will be 31 October 2024.

The Chief Executives' Committee (CEC) of the ICC also confirmed the eight regional qualifying spots for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026. According to this allocation, two teams each will qualify from Africa and Europe, one from the Americas, and three from a combined Asia and EAP regional final. Earlier on, Asia was allocated two spots and EAP one.

Apart from this, the Chief Executives' Committee (CEC) of the International Cricket Council also made developments in the umpiring session. Paul Reiffel was added to the ICC Men’s Cricket Committee as the Elite Panel Umpire while Richie Richardson was confirmed as the Elite Panel Referee on the Committee.

All these decisions were taken in the Annual Conference of the International Cricket Council, which took place in Sri Lanka, Colombo on Monday (22nd July). All the 108 members of the ICC attended the ICC Board and Annual General Meeting.

The Annual General Meeting of the ICC comes four days ahead of the start of the Paris 2024 Olympics. The governing body also focused on cricket's inclusion in the LA28 Games with the main focus on “Capitalizing on the Olympic Opportunity”.

ICC gives warning to USA Cricket and Cricket Chile

The International Cricket Council also gave a warning to USA Cricket and Cricket Chile. They have been put on notice and have been given 12 months to address their non-compliance with ICC Membership Criteria due to the lack of fit-for-purpose detailed governance and administrative structure and systems.

The governing body also stated that they will be reviewing T20 World Cup 2024. The International Cricket Council came under a lot of pumps during the tournament, especially for the kind of pitches that they prepared for the semi-finals and the league stage.

The ICC has allocated three directors, Roger Twose, Lawson Naidoo, and Imran Khwaja to review the T20 World Cup 2024. The trio after their inspections will be reporting back to the Board later in the year.