The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced on Thursday that the upcoming edition of T20 World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in South Africa in November 2022, has been postponed to February 2023. With this, only two major events will take place in 2022 – the ODI World Cup in New Zealand and the Commonwealth Games in July. Along with these, the Ashes is slated to be played for the latter part of the year.
As per the ICC release, the decision was taken while keeping in mind that there are “currently no major women’s events scheduled to take place in 2023, (so) the board confirmed the switch for the T20 World Cup to better support player preparation and to continue to build the momentum around the women’s game beyond 2022.”
While speaking on the matter, ICC CEO Manu Sawhney said: “Moving the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup to 2023 makes perfect sense on a number of levels. Firstly, it will provide a better workload balance for players giving them the best possible opportunity to perform to the highest levels on a global stage. Secondly, we can continue to build the momentum around the women’s game through 2022 and into 2023. We are committed to fueling the growth of the women’s game and today’s decision enables us to do that over the longer term.”
However, this is not the only event that got postponed. In August, the ICC had postponed the 2021 ODI World Cup, which was originally slated to take place for February-March 2021 in New Zealand, was postponed by a year, with the view of maintaining the “integrity of the tournament” amid the crunch time of COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the workload of the players will also be there.
On the other hand, the ICC is yet to take a call on the future of the inaugural Under-19 Women’s World Cup, which Bangladesh are due to host next year in January.
