Botswana to host women’s T20 World Cup qualifiers
Mqondisi Dube | Saturday May 20, 2023 06:00
Bangladesh will host the T20 World Cup finals between September and October next year.
The ICC, in awarding the hosting rights for the qualifiers, gave Botswana the right to organise the Division Two sub-regional qualifiers, while Uganda will host the regional finals.
The qualifiers in Botswana will be held from September 2-8 in Gaborone, where eight teams will battle it out for spots in the regional qualifiers. Botswana will be joined by Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique.
The top two teams will then proceed to the regional qualifiers to be played in Uganda between December 9 and 17. Top-tier sides, Nigeria, Rwanda, Namibia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe are already through to the regional qualifiers in Kampala and will be joined by the two teams from the Botswana tournament. The long road to Bangladesh 2024 will continue as the top two teams from the Uganda tournament, proceed to the global qualifiers, to be played next year, where the ICC’s rigorous qualification will conclude.
The Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) vice president, Sumod Damodar confirmed the recent developments. “This is a new development which arose last week and we have a Zoom meeting with ICC Africa this afternoon,” Damodar said on Wednesday. The top six ranked tournaments from the previous T20 World Cup finals, which were held in South Africa this year, are automatically through to the 2024 tournament. Australia are the defending champions after defeating South Africa by 19 runs at Newlands in February.
Australia and South Africa will be joined by India, England, New Zealand and West Indies as the sides that finished in the top six at the last competition. Pakistan, which is the next top-ranked side as of February this year, has also qualified for next year’s tournament, while the top two teams from the global qualifiers will also be in Bangladesh for the finals.