ICC reschedules Women's T-20 World Cup to 2023 to avoid having 3 major events in one year

The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced on Thursday that the next edition of the Women's World Cup T-20 which was initially scheduled to be held in 2022 in South Africa has been postponed. This step has been taken in a bid to avoid a cluster of big-ticket events in 2022. This comes as 3 major events have been scheduled for the year, which include the Common Wealth Games and the 50-over Women's World Cup. The Women's T-20 World Cup was scheduled to be held in November 2022 but has now been postponed by three months to February 2023.

Making the announcement, ICC issued a statement which read, "The Board confirmed that the ICC Women's T20 World Cup will move from its current slot at the end of 2022 to February 9 to 26, 2023. If not postponed, the year 2022 will have three major events including Common Wealth Games in July 2022 and Women's T20 World Cup in November 2022."

"As there are currently no major women's events scheduled to take place in 2023 the Board confirmed the switch for the T20 World Cup to better support player preparation and to continue to build the momentum around the women's game beyond 2022," the statement from ICC further added. 

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"Makes perfect sense": ICC CEO

Speaking about the move, ICC said that the decision was taken in a bid to reduce the workload of the players while keeping in mind the long term interests of women's cricket. ICC CEO Manu Sawhney said that the move 'makes perfect sense' as it will help the players balance the workload and improve their performance. Sawhney further added that this will help ICC build momentum around women's cricket from 2022 into 2023. Earlier in August, ICC postponed the 50 over Women's World Cup scheduled to be held in New Zealand from 2021 to 2022 due to COVID-19 outbreak across the globe while the Women's T20 cricket was set to debut in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022. 

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"Moving the ICC Women's T20 World Cup to 2023 makes perfect sense on a number of levels. Firstly, it will provide a better workload balance for players giving them the best possible opportunity to perform to the highest levels on a global stage. Secondly, we can continue to build the momentum around the women's game through 2022 and into 2023. We are committed to fuelling the growth of the women's game and today's decision enables us to do that over the longer term," said ICC CEO Manu Sawhney. 

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(With inputs from PTI)