Snehal Pradhan, Sana Mir and Bismah Maroof look forward to the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025 Qualifier in Pakistan
The strength in the depth of women's cricket will be on full display at the upcoming ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025 Qualifier in Pakistan.
ICC Manager - Women's Cricket and former India international cricketer, Snehal Pradhan, is looking forward to the event in Pakistan where six teams will compete for two spots at the Women's Cricket World Cup in India later this year.
Hosts Pakistan will be joined by ICC Full Members Bangladesh, Ireland and West Indies along with Associate Members Thailand and Scotland, for the Qualifier, and Pradhan believes that with the standard rising across the board, predicting who will come through qualifying is almost impossible.
She said: 'It's very high stakes cricket in terms of what is up for grabs. The last Cricket World Cup in New Zealand was an extremely successful event. We saw just how high-profile that event is and that is the opportunity that two of the six teams are going to be fighting it out for.
'Cricket with context, huge outcomes on the line, great opportunities so it's a brilliant tournament, everyone is excited about it. We've got four full members, two associate members, so this is an extremely competitive pack of six teams.
'It really is hard to pick the two teams who are going to get through. We saw Thailand make it to the T20 World Cup in 2020, so they have shown that they are able to get to the world stage, Scotland got to the T20 World Cup in 2024 so they can do it as well. No team will be taken lightly.'
The growth of the game has been evident across the board in recent years, with New Zealand and South Africa playing out the last ICC Women's T20 World Cup Final, while Nigeria and USA produced some stellar performances at the ICC U19 Women's T20 World Cup earlier this year.
For Pradhan, these improved displays at all levels are a result of a focus on increasing the opportunities for teams through the ICC Women's Championship, which provides context to bilateral ODI cricket in between World Cup events.
She explained: 'There are a couple of decisions that we reflected on in the last few years that mean that we are in the position that we are now. The ICC Women's Championship expanding to 10 teams and the awarding of ODI status to five Associate Member teams at the start of this ODI cycle has created a large pool of teams who are in the race for an eight-team Women's Cricket World Cup.
'We had a group of 16 teams who were eligible for an eight-team event. The volume of matches that we have seen in the calendar because of the structure that the ICC Women's Championship has meant that the standard of cricket has gone up.
'That is incredibly encouraging, you are seeing now the value of all those decisions and investments with the ICC confirming the first-ever commercial partner for dedicated women's cricket events with Unilever coming on board and starting their association at the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025.'
The result of this growth is a move towards expansion, both at T20 level, and also in ODIs, with the next World Cup set to be contested by 10 teams.
Former Pakistan captain Sana Mir has welcomed that decision, and the approach taken by the ICC to grow the game.
Looking forward to the event on home soil, she said: 'One of the great things about the ICC Women's Championship, which I benefited from hugely in my career, is that it has been expanded to 10 teams. I feel that plays a huge role, especially for countries like Bangladesh and Ireland now that they have been part of that.
'It is a very exciting time in women's cricket and if we keep doing things right, there will be more than four or five teams who people want to see playing against each other.
'In the last World Cup, a lot of matches went down to the last couple of overs and that's what you want to see as an audience. Women's cricket is providing that.'
That jeopardy is on the up at all levels, and the hope now is that fans will see plenty of it in Pakistan over the next few weeks.
Bismah Maroof, who succeeded Sana as Pakistan captain, added: 'Women's cricket has improved massively in the past few years and it's going from strength to strength.
'The associate countries are playing really well, Scotland and Thailand have come a long way and as a full member country, Ireland have grown a lot.
Pradhan concluded: 'If we get to the last round of matches and it is absolutely down to the wire to see who gets through, that will be the biggest sign of success.'
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