ICC Women’s T20 World Cup: All you need to know

We’re just under a month away from the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and ahead of the action getting underway down under, here’s all you need to know ahead of the seventh running of the limited overs tournament.

The tournament in Australia will feature 10 teams; the eight top-ranked teams based on their finishing positions in the 2018 edition as well as two qualifiers. Bangladesh and Thailand were the two to qualify and they join Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies as the 10 sides battling it out to win the trophy.

Group A

Group A features four-time winners and defending champions Australia, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and qualifiers Bangladesh. Given they have reached the final in five of the six T20 World Cups so far, winning four of them, Australia will be expected to go deep again this time around, particularly in their own back yard.

Being ranked third and fourth in the world and having form in this competition, both New Zealand and India will be dangerous to dismiss, while Sri Lanka and Bangladesh look up against it having struggled in previous years.

Group B

England, champions in 2009, headline Group B and they’ll look to go one better than their runners-up finish in 2018, when they were soundly beaten by the Aussies that day. But  have won nearly three quarters of their matches in this competition, so will be hoping they become just the second team to win it more than once.

Mark Robinson’s side will be joined by South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan and tournament newbies Thailand. The Proteas haven’t performed as they would have liked in the T20 World Cup with just one semi-final performance six years ago, while West Indies were champions in 2016. They have plenty of destructive players in their team including top-10 ranked batsman Stafanie Taylor and leg-spinner Afy Fletcher.

They look the two most creditable challenges to the English, with Pakistan failed to get out of the group stage in all of their appearances so far, while Thailand will surely struggle on their first appearance on this world stage.

Venues

Six of Australia’s best stadia are being used for the tournament, with the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground hosting both semi-finals, while the 100,000 seater Melbourne Cricket Group wills stage the final on 8 March.

Who will lift the Women’s T20 World Cup trophy? Well there isn’t long to wait to find out…