The International Cricket Council (ICC) Board meeting has jointly given Nepal and Bangladesh the responsibility of organizing the U-19 Women’s World Cup tournament to be held in 2027.
The ICC has approved Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand, Zimbabwe and Namibia and Bangladesh, and Nepal as the host countries of the ICC U19 events from 2024-2027.
The ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2024 will be hosted by Sri Lanka whilst the 2026 edition will be staged in Zimbabwe and Namibia. The ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup 2025 will be held in Malaysia and Thailand, and the 2027 U19 Women’s World Cup will be jointly hosted by Bangladesh and Nepal.
Chatur Bahadur Chand, President of the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), expressed the opinion that this kind of decision from ICC will help in raising the playing infrastructure and playing level of Nepali cricket. He said that if he can make the World Cup successful for the first time, he will have the opportunity to organize more tournaments and he will leave no stone unturned to complete the tournament.
“Since four years is a long time to conduct the competition, we will now talk to the government for infrastructure development,” Chand said.
The hosts were selected via a competitive bidding process overseen by a Board sub-committee chaired by Martin Snedden. The ICC Board accepted the recommendations of the committee who conducted a thorough review of each bid along with ICC management.
The qualification pathway for the 10-team ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 was approved. Eight teams will qualify for the event automatically comprising the top three teams from each group from the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023, the host Bangladesh (if not in the top three of Group 1) and the next highest ranked teams on the ICC T20I Rankings on 27 February 2023. The remaining two teams will be identified through the 10-team ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifier.
The qualification pathway for the 14-team ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2027 was also decided with ten teams gaining automatic qualification. The ten will comprise South Africa and Zimbabwe as Full Member hosts and the next eight highest-ranked teams on the ICC ODI Rankings on a date to be confirmed. The remaining four teams will qualify via the ICC CWC Global Qualifier.
