Women's Cricket

Women’s cricket is an upcoming phenomenon in world sport. Women’s World Cup is getting fame and soon will be a major sporting event in years to come. This blog is on a brief history of women’s cricket and the World Cup currently being held.

Women's international cricket was first played in 1934, when a party from England toured Australia and New Zealand. The first Test match was played on 28–31 December 1934, and was won by England. The first Test against New Zealand followed early the following year. These three nations remained the only Test playing teams in women's cricket until 1960, when South Africa played a number of matches against England. Limited over’s cricket was first played by first-class teams in England in 1962. Nine years later, the first international one day match was played in men's cricket, when England took on Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The first World Cup was held in England in 1973, two years before the inaugural men's tournament. The event's early years were marked by funding difficulties, which meant several teams had to decline invitations to compete and caused gaps of up to six years between tournaments. However, since 2005 World Cups have been hosted at regular four-year intervals.

The inaugural tournament was held at a variety of venues across England in June and July 1973, two years before the first men's Cricket World Cup was played. The competition was played as a round-robin tournament, and the last scheduled match was England against Australia. Australia went into the game leading the table by a solitary point: they had won four matches and had one abandoned. England had also won four matches, but they had lost to New Zealand. As a result, the match also served as a de facto final for the competition. England won the match, held at Edgbaston, Birmingham by 92 runs to win the tournament.

The 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup currently taking place in England from 24 June to 23 July 2017 is the eleventh edition of the Women's Cricket World Cup, and the third to be held in England (after the 1973 and 1993 tournaments).

Australia is by far the most successful team, having won six titles and failed to make the final on only two occasions. England (three titles) and New Zealand (one title) are the only other teams to have won the event, while India and the West Indies have each reached the final on one occasion without going on to win.

Eight teams qualified to participate in the tournament. The 2014–16 ICC Women's Championship, featuring the top eight ranked teams in women's cricket, will be the first phase of qualifying for the World Cup, with the top four teams qualifying automatically. The remaining four places were decided at the 2017 World Cup Qualifier, a ten-team event that was held in Sri Lanka in February 2017. This featured the bottom four teams from the ICC Women's Championship and six other teams.

The eight teams taking part are- Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Indies, Sri Lanka and South Africa

It was announced that in the Group Stage, eight sides will participate in a single-league format with each side playing the other once. The top four sides following the conclusion of the league matches will progress to the semi-finals with the winners meeting at Lord's on 23 July. Therefore, a total of 31 matches will be played during the 28-day tournament. In May 2017, the ICC announced that 10 games will be shown live on television, while the remaining 21 matches will be streamed live via the ICC website. The 10 televised matches will feature DRS for the first time in women's cricket.

We hope to see the women’s World Cup getting as big as the men’s World Cup and we wish all the women cricketers all the best in representing their respective nations in the World Cup.