ICC announces new T20 Champions Cup, 4 T20 World Cups in a bid to expand Women's game

The International Cricket Council, on Monday, announced the expansion of the women's game on the occasion of International Women's day 2021. After the 2023 cycle of the ICC tournaments is completed, the ICC has announced 4 T20 Women's World Cup, and T20 Champions Cup and proposed to add more teams from 2026 onwards.

The ICC T20 World Cups from 2026 will have 12 teams instead of 10 and the Cricket World Cups will have 10 teams instead of 8. The announcement comes one year after the Women's game created a record for the most number of crowd attendance, with 86.174 people thronging the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to witness the final of the Women's T20 World Cup final between Australia and India.

Speaking on the same, Manu Sawhney, the ICC Chief Executive in statement said, "We have been building momentum around the women’s game for the last four years investing in global broadcast coverage and marketing to drive fan engagement.

“The results speak for themselves with the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 attracting record numbers, 1.1 billion video views, making it the most watched women’s cricket event of all time and having 86,174 fans attending the final at the MCG, a record attendance for a women’s cricket event," he added.

“This decision to expand our women’s events builds on these foundations and allows us to give more member countries greater opportunities to compete on a global stage. This means that more teams will also get the opportunity to compete in the qualification pathways for the respective ICC events over the coming years. I am sure these initiatives will go a long way in helping us achieve our strategic goal of continuing to build strength and depth in the women’s game," Sawhney said.