The International Cricket Council on Tuesday confirmed the host countries for the four-year cycle of women’s marquee events spanning 2024 to 2027, headlined by India winning the hosting rights to the 50-over World Cup scheduled in 2025.
The 2017 finalists will get the chance to bag the coveted silverware for the first time, with the advantage of home conditions to back their case.
The 50-over women’s World Cup will remain an eight-team competition in 2025, with qualifiers getting confirmed via the ODI women’s Championship and the global qualifier. The competition will be played on a single round-robin basis before the knock-outs, featuring a total of 31 matches.
A year before the marquee event is held in India, the four-year cycle begins with a T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. As announced by the ICC, the tournament will be played in the September-October slot and will feature 23 matches with 10 countries vying for the trophy. The top 10 T20I sides will be divided into two groups of five before the semifinals and the final.
The T20 World Cup will expand to feature 12 teams from the 2026 edition, which will be played in England in June. The competition will follow the group format and will see 33 matches played over three weeks. This will be the first time the tournament will be held in England.
“We’re absolutely delighted that we’ve been selected to host the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026,”
said interim England and Wales Cricket Board CEO Claire Connor in an ICC release.
“We saw back in 2017 how hosting the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup captured people’s imagination and I’ll never forget watching Heather Knight lift the trophy on that magical day at a sold-out Lord’s.”
The new cycle of the women’s FTP will witness the first-ever ICC Women’s T20 Champions Trophy, which will be held in February 2027. The tournament hosting rights have been awarded to Sri Lanka, subject to them qualifying for it.
If the Lankan side don’t make the six-team competition, reports are that the ICC has kept UAE and NZ as backup hosts for it. The newly-launched event will see the top six T20I sides facing each other once before a marquee final for the trophy. It will feature 16 matches in total.
“Sri Lanka Cricket gives utmost importance to the growth of women’s cricket; hence we consider, being bestowed the honour of hosting ICC Women’s T20 Champions Trophy 2027, is an excellent opportunity for us to be a part of the global growth program launched by the International Cricket Council to develop women’s cricket,”
said Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) CEO Ashley de Silva.
The host countries for the initial four-year phase of the next eight-year FTP cycle in the women’s game were identified through a “competitive” bidding process, said the ICC.
The entire process was overseen by a board sub-committee, which was chaired by Martin Snedden. Also, present on the committee were BCCI and CWI heads Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Skerritt, respectively.
The recommendations put forth by the committee members were rectified by the ICC board members and were accepted upon approval of each bid.
Apart from the women’s events for 2024-27, the ICC has also finalised the FTP for the period and will be announcing it in the coming days.
