The 2025 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier kicks off from April 9, with the event set to confirm the two final spots of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025, which is scheduled to take place later this year in India.
The qualifier will follow a round-robin format, with six teams including the likes of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ireland and West Indies taking part, with the tournament scheduled to be held at the Gaddafi Stadium and the Lahore City Cricket Association (LCCA) Stadium in Pakistan.
Four of the aforementioned teams were unable to qualify for the World Cup directly due to their low ranking in the 2022/23-25 ICC Women’s Championship cycle. Scotland and Thailand are the two other teams who will be taking part in the qualifiers, courtesy of their ICC ODI rankings.
Pakistan will face Ireland on the opening day of the qualifiers while West Indies take on Scotland as well on the opening day. The second day will see Bangladesh take on Thailand. A day before taking off for Pakistan, Bangladesh’s captain Nigar Sultana-Joty spoke about her team’s chances of making it to the main event and the grind the girls have been putting in recently.
Joty spoke about Pakistan and West Indies being two of the bigger teams in the qualifier and how playing against Pakistan and West Indies often gives them an edge.
“I think both teams are beatable because we have won against both teams. Perhaps we play more regularly against Pakistan than the West Indies. But recently we played in the West Indies and won a match there, so we have some confidence,” said Sultana-Joty.
Bangladesh, earlier this year, had travelled to the Caribbean for a white-ball series against the West Indies. Although Bangladesh went down 0-3 in the T20I series and 1-2 in the ODI series, Sultana-Joty hopes that the experience gained will help them in the sub-continent conditions. Late in 2024, the Tigresses hosted Ireland at home and while they were swept 0-3 in the T20I series, they put up a dominant performance in the ODI series, picking up a clean 3-0 win and with Ireland in the mix in the qualifiers, the Bangladesh girls are confident.
The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 is set to take place in India between September and October 2025 and missing out on a sub-continent World Cup will be disastrous for Bangladesh and they have been practicing tirelessly. Sultana-Joty also spoke about the importance of Bangladesh joining the ICC’s FTP program, which not only increased the number of games but has helped the players financially as well.
“We didn’t go to our families to celebrate Eid and had to practice even the day before Eid because we all know how important the tournament is for the team. When a team goes to play an ICC event, everyone takes special notice. The ICC also provides different opportunities when a team competes in an ODI World Cup. We all realise that this is a big deal for our careers.
“After we played in the last ODI World Cup and entered the FTP, our number of games increased by a lot. The players benefitted in terms of respect and in financial terms. For women’s cricket, it’s important to qualify for the World Cup and we did everything that was in our power even though it was tough to do during Ramadan. We even practiced under lights because two of our matches will be under lights and every point is important,” said Sultana-Joy.
“Every player is serious. We are also practicing today since we will have two days of travel. So far, the preparation has been good, and we will get practice matches there before the main tournament.”
(Quotes sourced from The Daily Star)
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