ICC Announces 3 New Tournaments After Huge Success Of Women's World Cup 2025

ICC announces three new women's cricket tournaments, including the Women's Emerging Nations Trophy in Bangkok, to boost global growth after India's 2025 World Cup win.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Saturday (November 15) announced three new women’s cricket tournaments to build on the huge success of the 2025 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.

The main event, called ICC Women’s Emerging Nations Trophy, will be an eight-team tournament focused on Associate nations and aims to “promote and expand women’s cricket around the world".

The inaugural edition will be held in Bangkok from November 20-30, with the participants being hosts Thailand, the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, the United Arab Emirates, Scotland, Namibia, Tanzania, and Uganda. The tournament brings together the eight leading Associate nations in women’s T20I cricket — five with ODI status and three ranked highest in the ICC T20I table as of May 1, 2025.

All eight sides will face each other once in a single round-robin league. Games will be hosted across Bangkok at the Terdthai Cricket Ground and the Asian Institute of Technology Ground.

In addition, the ICC Women’s Challenge Trophy will launch in 2026 in Rwanda, featuring the highest-ranked teams from each of the five development regions not involved in the Emerging Nations Trophy.

A second event, set to begin in 2027, will bring eight Associate sides into competition with some of the top-ranked teams, furthering the ICC’s high-performance pathway. Its official name is yet to be announced.

“Nearly 300,000 fans attended matches across India and (co-host) Sri Lanka, and the event concluded with India becoming the first Asian team to lift the Women’s Cricket World Cup, a watershed moment in the evolution of the sport and the socio-cultural context of gender roles," ICC said in a statement.

“Building on the extraordinary impetus provided by the marquee event, the ICC continues to invest in creating a sustainable future for women’s cricket. The Women’s Emerging Nations Trophy is part of a new three-tier development pathway designed to offer high-performance exposure to emerging nations," it added.

ICC Chief Executive, Sanjog Gupta, said the new tournaments will provide emerging nations more opportunities.

“It is the ICC and the Chair’s vision to sustainably expand cricket’s footprint across the world and grow the women’s game. Providing elite athletes from emerging nations more opportunities to play at the highest level is aimed at fast-tracking their development and improving the competitiveness of their teams.

“It also drives the visibility of the sport in participant nations, serving as a driver of girls’ involvement in the sport and inspires women from other nations to stay committed to the development pathways," he added.

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