ICC Announces The Path To The 2023 Women's T20 World Cup; 8 Teams To Participate In A Qualifying Tournament

The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the process of qualifying for the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup to be held in South Africa. It will be a 10-team World Cup, divided into 2 groups of five teams each as planned earlier.

Along with the hosts, South Africa, seven top teams on the ICC women’s T20I team rankings as of November 30, 2021, attain the direct qualification to the mega-event. Rest 2 spots will be decided by a qualifying tournament beginning in August 2021 and includes 37 teams.

Eight teams – Bhutan, Botswana, Cameroon, France, Malawi, Myanmar, Philippines, and Turkey – will be competing in an ICC women’s event for the first time, indicating the rapid growth in women’s cricket. Argentina and Brazil will also return to ICC women’s fray for the first time since 2012.

Five regions will host a regional qualifying event. The top team from each region will join the bottom two ranked teams in the women’s T20I rankings. Another team that will be the highest-ranked team in the regional qualifiers on the November cut-off date, who missed out on topping their regional event table will be added making it an 8-team qualifying tournament. Across the entire qualifying events, 115  Women’s T20Is will be played.

ICC Women’s Cricket Manager, Holly Colvin said, “Sustaining and then building on the momentum from February is key and the start of the next Women’s T20 World Cup qualifying pathway is a great place to start. There is lots to look forward to in the cricket scheduled with 115 women’s T20 Internationals due to be played over seven months and five teams competing in their first-ever ICC Women’s Qualifier.”

ICC Postponed the T20 World Cup from 2022 to 2023

In the wake of the pandemic created by the covid-19 virus, ICC had to postpone the 50-over World Cup from 2021 to 2022. Also, women’s cricket will be included in the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham scheduled from 28 July to 8 August.

Hence, considering the jam-packed calendar in 2022, the governing council decided to shift the Women’s T20 World Cup from November 2022 to February 2023. Australia is the current champion; they defeated India in 2020 at the iconic MCG in front of a record 85,000 capacity crowd.

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