Women's Cricket World Cup delayed until 2022

The next Women's Cricket World Cup has been postponed until 2022. The event was due to take place in New Zealand in February and March 2021. 

New Zealand will remain the venue but England's defence of the title they won in 2017 has been delayed by 12 months. 

There will now be three major women's events in 2022, with the T20 World Cup and Commonwealth Games also due to take place.

But with no international women's cricket having been played since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the International Cricket Council wanted to give sides as much time as possible to get game time.

"We have taken the decision to move the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup to give players from every competing nation the best opportunity to be ready for the world's biggest stage and there is still a global qualifier to complete to decide the final three teams," said ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney.

"There has been no women's international cricket played since the conclusion of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup earlier this year and due to the varying impact of Covid-19 globally that is likely to remain the situation for a number of the teams.

"Moving the event by 12 months gives all competing teams the chance to play a sufficient level of cricket ahead of both the qualification event and leading into a Cricket World Cup so the integrity of the tournament is maintained."

A 10-team qualifying tournament was due to take place in Sri Lanka in July but has been moved to 2021. Ireland will be among the sides hoping to book one of the three remaining spots at the World Cup.