ICC Women's T20 World Cup. 2026.

England play West Indies this evening. Winner is through to the semis. England's run rate is good enough that we'd probably be OK with a defeat that wasn't by a really big margin, but the objective has to be to win the group so as to avoid Australia in the semis.

Meanwhile India are in trouble in the other group, defeat to South Africa meaning they probably need to beat Australia to qualify, unless Bangladesh do them a favour by beating SA. No laughing at the back, now.

India v Bangladesh this afternoon. Must-win for India as they have Australia in the last set of games. If India do win, realistically they then need to minimise the damage against Aus and hope Bangladesh beat SA. If Bangladesh win, their final game against SA is effectively winner qualifies to play (probably) England in the semis while India would definitely be out unless SA somehow lose to NL.

The evening game is SA v Netherlands. Anything other than a SA win would be one of the biggest shocks in the history of cricket.

Bangladesh 136/8. I think India will fancy their chances of chasing that. The most notable event was Bangladesh retiring a player out in order to bring in a pinch hitter. A very rare tactic other than in village cricket where the star batter has turned up late. Only gained them about 4 runs above the rate the rest of the team were scoring at, but an interesting idea.

Ireland's win means England are guaranteed first in the group, whatever the result against the Kiwis, while NZ can pinch the second semi-final slot off WI if they beat England.

England's win over NZ means that Ireland's win over WI changes nothing - WI get the second semi-final slot and Sri Lanka get third in the group. If the qualification rules for next time are the same as this one, third in the group gets an automatic slot in the next tournament, without needing to be one of the two top-ranked teams among those who didn't get a qualification slot (NZ will get one of those 2 places). Sri Lanka might have been worried about being overtaken by others chasing the ranking-based places, so a great result for them to put qualification beyond doubt.

Bangladesh would need a huge win over SA to get ahead of them and/or India, so the other group boils down to: if Aus beat Ind, Aus play WI and England get SA if they beat Bangladesh or India if not. If Ind beat Aus, England get India unless it's a huge margin in which case we might get the Aussies while WI would get India. All will be clear after tomorrow's matches.

Edit: I'd totally forgotten that Pakistan are hosting the next one. That could mean there being only 5 automatic qualifying slots not 6. Because of the rule to make sure India never miss out, or as it's officially put the rule that the top two ranked nations who don't qualify get in anyway, NZ won't miss out either way. And they'll have to find a way to get Sri Lanka into the competition because otherwise where are India going to play their matches. They couldn't possibly be expected to go to Pakistan, after all.

SA on top against Bangladesh at the moment. If they win, India will  need to beat Australia this afternoon to go through. 

Australia were briefly in trouble but eventually got going and got there with an over to spare. South Africa go through to face England in the semis, India are out, Australia play West Indies in the other match.

killerandflash said:

fenaddick said:

And India are out, shame..

Hilarious that the one country not interested in the football WC are out of the women's cricket WC and have lost a T20 series to Ireland 

I didn’t know Italy had a cricket team.
😉