The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, which was scheduled for February-March next year in New Zealand, has been postponed to February-March in 2022. The decisions were taken by the IBC (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC) after an extensive contingency planning exercise while keeping the factors like the health, cricket and commercial impact of coronavirus pandemic across the globe in mind.
ICC Acting Chairman Imran Khwaja said: “Over the last few months as we have considered how we return to staging global events, our number one priority has been to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in ICC events.”
Notably, 2022 will witness three big tournaments – 50-over World Cup in New Zealand, T20 World Cup in South Africa and the T20 tournament in Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. However, the qualification event will decide the rest three teams who will join the hosts and the top four teams who have already qualified for the 2021 Women’s World Cup.
There’s always a positive to take out of any situation , in this case too , I say more time for planning and preparations . Same vision , same goal #WorldCup2022 https://t.co/Cuq9kbQuA4
— Mithali Raj (@M_Raj03) August 7, 2020
“We have taken the decision to move the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup to give players from every competing nation, the best opportunity to be ready for the world’s biggest stage and there is still a global qualifier to complete to decide the final three teams,” Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said in a statement.
“There has been no women’s international cricket played since the conclusion of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup earlier this year and due to the varying impact of COVID-19 globally that is likely to remain the situation for a number of the teams,” he shared.
He further added, “Moving the event by 12 months gives all competing teams the chance to play a sufficient level of cricket ahead of both the qualification event and leading into a Cricket World Cup so the integrity of the tournament is maintained.”
Gutted to know that the World Cup has been rescheduled. But, I guess, sometimes we have to step back and look at the bigger picture. Hope things get back to normal real soon. #hopeandstrength https://t.co/6PsBiZ92gZ
— Shikha Pandey (@shikhashauny) August 7, 2020
However, the format of the postponed ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup will remain the same for 2021. Five teams have already qualified for the mega event that will take place in 2022. While the qualification event to finalise the final three teams for the mega event was earlier scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in July 2020, this was postponed owing to the global pandemic COVID-19. The qualification event will now take place in 2021.
