Bangladesh, Ireland added to ICC Women’s Championship 2022-25
The addition of the two teams makes it a 10-team competition for automatic qualification for the 2025 Women’s World Cup.
Published : May 25, 2022 22:11 IST
Two new teams will feature in the next edition of the ICC Women’s Championship, making it a 10-team league.
Bangladesh and Ireland, ranked 9th and 10th, respectively, in the ODI team rankings, are the two teams which will be added to the mix for the third iteration (2022-25) of the event, following the success of the ICC Women’s Championship (IWC) 2014-16 and 2017-20. They join Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies in pursuit of automatic qualification for the 2025 ICC Women’s World Cup.
“Each team will play eight three-match series (four home and four away) over the next three years. At the end of the cycle, the top five teams and the host will book a berth for the World Cup in 2025, while the rest of the teams will have to go through the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier,” the ICC stated in a communique.
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The ICC Women’s Championship 2022-25 will begin with the series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka from 1-5 June 2022 in Karachi.
Australia is the defending champion, having won the previous two cycles of the IWC.
ODI status for the teams
The ICC also handed five Associate women’s teams – Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, Thailand and the USA – ODI status with immediate effect. Their performances in the one-day games will affect their ODI rankings and count towards qualification for the 2025 World Cup.
“Increasing the number of teams in the ICC Women’s Championship and awarding ODI status to five additional teams will help us to accelerate the growth of the women’s game,” ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said.
“More teams playing more regularly creates a more competitive environment as we saw at the recent ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.”