International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced the Women’s regional qualifiers dates for qualification pathway towards 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. Malaysia will be hosting the Asian region qualifiers from 22nd – 28th November 2021.
Malaysia will host Women’s squads from Bhutan, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, China, Hong Kong, Myanmar and Nepal in a 8-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.
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.
Most of the team’s from the ICC qualifiers will likely face each other during the Women’s Asia Cup qualifiers as well before that, also to be hosted by Malaysia. Myanmar Women will be making their debut in an ICC women’s event for the first time.
Thailand Women were the winners of the Asian qualifiers held in Thailand in 2019, from which they progressed to the Global qualifiers in Scotland in 2019 and claimed one of the two spots on offer to take part in their maiden appearance in Women’s T20 World Cup held in 2020 in Australia.
The ICC Board has approved 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.
