New Delhi: India will host the Women’s 50-over World Cup in 2025 as the BCCI has successfully bid for the mega event during the ICC Annual Conference that concluded in Birmingham on Tuesday. Three other ICC women’s events were also awarded on the day with Bangladesh hosting the 2024 T20 World Cup and England winning hosting rights for the 2026 edition. The inaugural T20 Champions Trophy in 2027 will be hosted by Sri Lanka.
The ICC flagship event will return to the country after more than a decade. The last time a women’s 50-over World Cup was held in India was back in 2013 when Australian team emerged champions after beating the West Indies by 114 runs in the final in Mumbai. The last big mega women’s global cricket event held in India was the 2016 World T20 but that was primarily because ICC used to organise both men’s and women’s event simultaneously.
However, the system has changed with popularity of women’s game increasing exponentially and ICC has segregated the events to procure the proper value for women’s game with separate broadcast deal and exclusive coverage. ‘We were keen on hosting the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 and we are glad we have won the hosting rights for this marquee clash on the women’s calendar’, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly was quoted as saying in an ICC release. ‘The sport has undergone tremendous transformation since then. The popularity of women’s cricket is rapidly rising, and this is a step in the right direction. The BCCI will work closely with the ICC and fulfil all the requirements’, Ganguly added.
‘We are taking several steps to raise the profile of the sport right from the grassroots level and hosting the World Cup will further boost the popularity of the sport in the country. The BCCI remains committed to women’s cricket in India. We have the infrastructure in place, and I am confident we will have a very successful edition of the World Cup’, BCCI secretary Jay Shah said.
The 50 over Women’s World Cup, however, has been a stand-alone event since its inception in 1973, two years before the men’s mega event started in England in 1975. India have hosted the event thrice — in 1978, 1997 and 2013. In the 2025 Women’s World Cup, the hosts and five top nations from ICC Women’s Championship (IWC) 2022-2025 will get direct entry into the tournament. The remaining two teams will be identified through a global Qualifier comprising six teams. Out of six teams in the Qualifier, four will be from the IWC (rankings after top five teams) and the other two will be selected according to the ICC Women’s ODI Team Rankings.
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