Women's ODI World Cup Qualifier to commence on November 21 in Zimbabwe

The Qualifiers of the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2022 are all set to begin on November 21 in Zimbabwe. A total of ten teams will play in the competition which is named Women’s ODI World Cup Qualifier 2021. Only the top three teams from the tournament will qualify and join the five teams who got direct qualification for the tournament.

The mega event will be played in March-April in New Zealand. The tournament was supposed to be played in 2021 originally with the qualifiers to be played in July 2020 in Sri Lanka. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced a postponement. The ten teams in the qualifiers have been divided into two groups of five each.

In Group A, we have the West Indies, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, and the Netherlands. In Group B, we have Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Zimbabwe, USA. The top three teams will qualify from both groups. There will be a super six stage, where the teams will play the countries which have qualified from the other group.

The top three teams to join New Zealand, Australia, England, India, and South Africa

This tournament doesn’t have a knockout stage. The rankings of the teams will be decided based on the points table, which will take their cumulative effort into consideration according to ESPNCricinfo. The top three will then join New Zealand, Australia, England, India, and South Africa in the main event in early 2022.

On the opening day of the qualifiers, there will be four matches played. Pakistan will face Bangladesh while West Indies will face Papua New Guinea. In the other two matches, Thailand will take on Zimbabwe and Ireland will go up against the Netherlands. A total of 29 matches will be played in the tournament, which will go till December 5.

The entire tournament will be played in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. The Sunrise Sports Club, Takashinga Cricket Club, Harare Sports Club, and Old Hararians are the four venues that have been shortlisted to host the entire event. Zimbabwe also hosted the Qualifying event for the men’s World Cup 2019, which was played in 2018. The tournament was continuously delayed due to the pandemic but finally will be played just a few months ahead of the main event in New Zealand.

Group A: West Indies, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Netherlands, Group B: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Zimbabwe, USA