We, at Female Cricket, have been writing for a while that the most vulnerable lot will suffer most from the pandemic. The writings on the wall narrate that the predictions have come true.
In cricket, women cricket seems to have suffered the most. While there have been changes in the schedule of upcoming ICC events, men’s world cup has been shifted to a year later with changes in the fixture. We would now see India hosting a T20 world cup in 2021 and Aussies a year later.
Women’s World Cup 2021 has been delayed until 2022 in light of the pandemic. The International Cricket Council decided the fate of the tournaments through teleconference on Friday. The 12th edition of the 50-over tournament was postponed as per the Board Meeting of ICC. On a release, it said “The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand has been postponed until February March 2022 because of the impact the pandemic has had on cricket globally,” the ICC said in a release on Friday”.
JUST IN:
The next Women’s 50-over World Cup postponed from Feb 2021 to 2022. 🙁#cricket #t20worldcup pic.twitter.com/RNfadnXgLZ
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) August 7, 2020
It has to be noted that these decisions were agreed upon by IBC which is the commercial subsidiary of ICC. On the qualifiers preceding the cup, ICC said that “The original global qualification event to determine the final three teams to contest the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup was scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in July 2020, but this was postponed due to COVID-19. The qualification event will now be held in 2021”.
The Chief Executive of the International Cricket Council said that “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”.
This is great to hear from @M_Raj03 👏😍 #CricketWorldCup pic.twitter.com/rMIrlcyM55
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) August 7, 2020
He added “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. 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”.
The world cup, scheduled in New Zealand, was special for India. Stars like Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj were up for their last attempt at the premiere cup. We have to wait for the next time when the ICC takes the next call.
A student who enjoys studying cricket more than anything else, keen to learn the insights of the women’s game.