ICC Women’s T20 World Cup postponed to February 2023

Sports

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Thursday announced that the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup has been moved from its current slot at the end of 2022 to February 9-26, 2023.

ICC, in an official release, also confirmed that the ICC World Test Championship points system will be amended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ICC said the Board approved a recommendation from the ICC Cricket Committee, headed by Anil Kumble, to change the competition terms for the event to determine how series affected by the global pandemic are accounted for on the points table. India was leading the points table but with new rules, Australia has toppled the Virat Kohli-led side as Tim Paine-led side has 82.22 percent points while India have 75.00 percent points.

ICC then said the “Board also confirmed that the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup will move from its current slot at the end of 2022 to 9-26 February 2023.”

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“The move follows the decision in August to postpone the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 to 2022 meaning there would be three major events in 2022 with the Commonwealth Games in July 2022 and the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup due to be held in November 2022,” the statement read.

ICC further said that 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.”

ICC CEO Manu Sawhney said moving the premier tournament makes “perfect sense”. “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 fueling the growth of the women’s game and today’s decision enables us to do that over the longer term,” Sawhney said in a statement.

ICC said the Board also approved the introduction of an Excluded Persons Policy as part of the ICC Anti-Corruption Code with immediate effect. “The policy enables the ICC ACU to exclude corruptors who are ‘non-participants’ to the Code to prevent people who attempt to corrupt the sport from involvement in the game. It will also make it an offence for ‘participants’ to the Code to associate with excluded non-participants,” it said.

Sawhney said: “This is a significant addition to the ICC Anti-Corruption Code and enables the sport to impose an exclusion order on known corruptors preventing them from any involvement in cricket activities including playing, administration, financing, attendance or any kind of involvement in a league, team or franchise. It will allow our ACU to better disrupt the activities of non-participant corruptors which currently the ICC have little, if any, control over. This is crucial if we are to continue to protect the integrity of our sport.”

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