International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced that the European Women’s regional qualifiers, which is the qualification pathway towards 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup will be hosted at the La Manga club facility in Spain from August 26th – 30th, 2021.
Scotland were originally scheduled to host Women’s squads from Ireland, Netherlands, France, Germany and Turkey in the 6-nation tournament, from which the top team will qualify for the global qualifiers, and there will be opportunity for the team finishing second as well, as the final position in the 8-nation global qualifiers will be filled by the highest ranked team in the regional qualifiers on the November cut-off date, who missed out on topping their regional event table.
However, Turkey Women will not be taking part in the event anymore as the necessary approval and travel documentation required due to COVID-19 restrictions for the team was not able to be secured from the Turkish Sports Ministry in time.
The five regions (Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and East Asia-Pacific) will host a regional qualifying event with the top team from each region joining the bottom two ranked teams in the Women’s T20I Rankings as of 30 November 2021 – from the teams that competed at the Australia 2020 event – into the eight-team ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2022.
Cricket Scotland Chief Executive, Gus Mackay said “While Scottish Government regulations on travel mean that we were unable to host any international ICC events in 2021, I hope that those regulations will be reviewed soon to allow international cricket to restart in this country.”
The ICC Board has put in place a detailed COVID-19 contingency plan in consultation with the ICC Medical Committee for all ICC Qualifying Events. The ICC’s priority is the protection and well-being of everyone involved in its events. Plans have been developed, which detail on-going risk management processes to monitor and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all hosts and participants.
In the previous year disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic, Germany Women were the only European Associate member to have played two bi-lateral series, when they toured Oman in February 2020 and Austria in August 2020. In 2021, Scotland Women and Netherlands Women have toured Ireland and have played a bi-lateral WT20I series, while Germany Women hosted France Women in July 2021 for a bi-lateral WT20I series.
2021 Women’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifiers Schedule
26th August 2021: Netherlands vs Scotland (Scorecard); Ireland vs Germany (Scorecard); France vs Netherlands (Scorecard)
27th August 2021: Germany vs France (Scorecard); Ireland vs Scotland (Scorecard); Netherlands vs Germany (Scorecard)
29th August 2021: France vs Ireland (Scorecard); Germany vs Scotland (Scorecard)
30th August 2021: Scotland vs France (Scorecard); Netherlands vs Ireland (Scorecard)
