International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced a new qualification pathway for ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup and World T20 tournaments. The next Women’s Cricket World Cup is slated for 2021 and will see the new qualification pathway implemented.
As per the new pathway, the host’s along with the top four teams from the ICC Women’s Championship will qualify directly while the bottom three teams in the championship will join Bangladesh, Ireland and the five regional winners in the global qualifiers.
The 5 regional qualifiers (ICC Americas, ICC East Asia-Pacific, ICC Africa, ICC Asia & ICC Europe) and the structure of the regional tournaments will be announced in due course of time.
Scotland, Thailand and Papua New Guinea took part in the global qualifiers for Women’s World Cup in 2016, while 6 Associate countries took part in global qualifiers for Women’s World T20 in 2018.
The regional pathway will provide an opportunity for ICC Americas to stage the qualification event on their own as the region got clubbed with ICC Europe for regional qualification for the 2018 qualifiers. And with the relaxation of not having to pay the entry fees any longer to participate in sub-regional qualification tournaments, more Associate member countries with a structure for domestic Women’s cricket will look to get into the qualification pathway events in the regional structure.
