In a move long overdue for the sport in the South American region and a big boost for the growth of Women’s cricket, both Argentina and Brazil have been announced as participants in the Americas regional qualifiers, the pathway towards qualification for 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa.
As per the original schedule, USA were to host Women’s teams from Canada, Argentina and Brazil in the Americas Qualifiers from September 11th – 18th, 2021 at the Reforma Cricket Club, from which the top team will advance to the global qualifiers in 2022, while the team finishing second will have the chance to qualify as well if they finish highest among all the second-placed teams in the five regional qualifiers with regards to ICC team rankings at the cut-off date. ICC have now updated that Cricket Mexico will now be hosting the qualifiers from October 18th – 25th owing to the COVID-19 pandemic travel and safety restrictions in the US, because of which the U19 Americas qualifiers was cancelled all-together.
2021 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Americas Qualifiers Schedule (Local Timings)
18th October 2021: Brazil Women vs USA Women @10:00am (Scorecard) ; Canada Women vs Argentina Women @2:00pm (Scorecard)
19th October 2021: Argentina Women vs Brazil Women @10:00am (Scorecard) ; USA Women vs Canada Women @2:00pm (Scorecard)
21st October 2021: USA Women vs Argentina Women @9:00am (Scorecard) ; Brazil Women vs Canada Women @2:00pm (Scorecard)
22nd October 2021: Argentina Women vs Canada Women @9:00am (Scorecard) ; USA Women vs Brazil Women @2:00pm (Scorecard)
24th October 2021: Canada Women vs USA Women @9:00am (Scorecard) ; Brazil Women vs Argentina Women @2:00pm (Scorecard)
25th October 2021: Canada Women vs Brazil Women @9:00am (Scorecard) ; USA Women vs Argentina Women @2:00pm (Scorecard)
Women’s team’s from Argentina and Brazil have been playing in the regional tournament, South American Championships for more than a decade now and only in the 2018 and 2019 editions, were they able to play matches with official T20I status in Colombia and Peru. The participation of Argentina and Brazil will also provide a great opportunity for Chile and Mexico to also look forward to taking part in the future ICC regional tournaments. Brazil Women are the defending Champions from the 2019 Women’s South American Championships, after claiming victory over Argentina Women in the final. The 2020 edition of the tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic, which was scheduled to be hosted by Brazil.
We are delighted to have been given the chance to prove ourselves against the best in the region after many years. We have strengthen our domestic competition and we believe that this is the perfect goal to complete the player pathway for our women – Cricket Argentina
The previous Americas qualifiers for 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup was played between Canada and USA in a 3-match series, which USA Women won convincingly to book their spot in the global qualifiers in Scotland in 2019. However, the 2021 qualifiers, which will be played now in October, will see Canada and USA battle it out with Brazil and Argentina in the tournament.
USA and Canada national squad have had the opportunity to play against a combined Americas XI squad before the previous regional qualifiers as part of warm-up games, where the Americas XI squad was made up of players from Argentina, Brazil and other Associate members in the South American region. Both USA Cricket and Cricket Canada recently hosted their respective Women’s National Championships to prepare their players for the upcoming ICC tournament.
It is a pleasure to be part of this new step on Women’s pathway! It is important for all of us to have this opportunity and start structuring our development for high performance as well as increased participation, national leagues and coaching education. We are super happy! – Cricket Brasil
