The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup is the world’s oldest sports championship, with the first tournament held in England in 1973. Matches are played as One Day Internationals (ODIs) over 50 overs, while there is also another championship for Twenty20 International cricket, the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
The World Cup is currently organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Until 2005, when the two organisations merged, it was administered by a separate body, the International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC). The first World Cup was held in England in 1973. The event’s early years were marked by funding difficulties, which meant several teams had to decline invitations to compete and caused gaps of up to six years between tournaments. However, since 2005 World Cups have been hosted at regular four-year intervals.
The eleven World Cups played to date have been held in five countries, with India and England having hosted the event three times. Australia are the most successful team, having won six titles and failed to make the final on only three occasions. England (four titles) and New Zealand (one title) are the only other teams to have won the event, while India (twice) and the West Indies (once) have each reached the final without going on to win.
The 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup was the seventh ICC Women’s T20 World Cup tournament. It was held in Australia between 21 February and 8 March 2020. The final took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on International Women’s Day. Hosts Australia won the tournament, beating India by 85 runs, to win their fifth title.
It was a standalone tournament, the men’s tournament was initially held eight months ahead of the schedule, but would be postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Australia were the defending champions, and lost their opening match of the tournament against India. For the first time at the Women’s T20 World Cup, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the use of technology to monitor front-foot no-balls for all matches during the tournament. The third umpire assisted the umpire at the bowler’s end in calling the front-foot no-balls, communicating this to the on-field umpires.
Five facts about ICC Women’s World Cup 2020 are:
- The tournament saw West Indies’ Deandra Dottin score the first women’s T20I century, 112 not out against South Africa, with the 38 balls needed to bring up three figures still the fastest in WT20Is.
- Ashleigh Gardner became Player of the Match performance in the eight-wicket final victory over England, the all-rounder scoring 33 runs and taking three wickets, but once again Meg Lanning’s side was full of stand-out performers.
- The tournament had 12 billion sponsor impressions making it the most successful women’s ICC tournament ever. The event was the most successful women’s cricket tournament ever.
- Across the April-June lockdown period, overall interactions on the ICC Facebook page were more than two and a half times higher than other leading leagues and sports bodies across the world.
- 90 million global television viewers and over 5.4 billion minutes in India alone. A 131% increase in global unique broadcast audience from the 2018 event and a 103% increase in overall global viewing numbers.
