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Icc Women’s T20 World Cup 2020
The digital and broadcasting viewing figures for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 were released by the International Cricket Council after the tournament. Despite this event being a standalone tournament, the digital channels had accumulated figures of 1.1 billion video views, making it the most- watched ICC Women’s event ever and the second most watched event after the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019. This figure is 20 times the video views delivered in the previous edition hosted by the West Indies in 2018 and 10 times the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2017.
The 2020 edition of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup was the seventh edition of the tournament. The event was hosted by Australia between 21st February and 8th March, held eight months ahead of the men's tournament. The final match of the tournament between India and Australia saw a record-breaking viewership in both the countries, while both teams played in front of 86,174 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) held on the International Women’s Day. Australia won the tournament, defeating India by 85 runs, to win their fifth title overall.
Playing as the defending champions, Australia interestingly lost their opening match to India. Team India was the first team to qualify for the semi-finals after recording three consecutive wins from their first three matches. For the first time in a Women's T20 World Cup, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the use of technology to monitor front-foot no-balls for all matches during the tournament. The third umpire would assist the umpire at the bowler's end in calling the front-foot no-balls, communicating this to the on-field umpires.
India won their third and final group game against Sri Lanka to finish at top of Group A. South Africa was the second team to qualify for the semi-finals, after they also won their first three group games. England were the third team to progress to the semi-finals, after defeating the West Indies in their final group game. In the final match of Group, A, hosts Australia defeated New Zealand in a nail biter to take the fourth and final spot in the semi-finals. The final match in Group B, between South Africa and the West Indies, was abandoned due to rain, which meant that South Africa finished top of the group. Following which, England were drawn against India in the first semi-final, and Australia faced South Africa in the second semi-final.
The first semi-final was washed out due to rain, pushing India to the final after finishing at the top of Group A. This was the first time India had progressed to the final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. Australia defeated South Africa by 5 runs in the second semi-final in a rain-stricken match to advance to the final.
Qualification Criteria
The 2020 edition of the tournament was played between 10 teams. The eight top-ranked teams based on their finishing positions from the 2018 ICC Women's World Twenty20 qualified automatically to play in this edition. The rest two qualification places were decided through the 2019 ICC Women's World Twenty20 Qualifier, with Bangladesh and Thailand advancing to the World tournament. This was the first time that Thailand had qualified for a Women's T20 World Cup tournament. Following the qualification tournament, Bangladesh were placed in Group A and Thailand in Group B.
Match Venues
ICC announced six venues in four cities in January 2018, where the matches were held:
Canberra
• Ground: Manuka Oval
• Capacity: 13,500
• Matches: Group stage
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Melbourne
• Ground: Junction Oval
• Capacity: 7,000
• Matches: Group stage
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Perth
• Ground: WACA
• Capacity: 24,500
• Matches: Group stage
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Sydney
• Ground: Sydney Showground Stadium
• Capacity: 22,000
• Matches: Group stage
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Sydney
• Ground: Sydney Cricket Ground
• Capacity: 48,000
• Matches: Semi-finals
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Melbourne
• Ground: Melbourne Cricket Ground
• Capacity: 1,00,024
• Matches: Final
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Umpires
ICC appointed Steve Bernard, Chris Broad and G. S. Lakshmi along with 12 other Umpires were named as match referees on 12th February 2020:
• Lauren Agenbag
• Gregory Brathwaite
• Chris Brown
• Kim Cotton
• Shaun George
• Nitin Menon
• Claire Polosak
• Ahsan Raza
• Sue Redfern
• Langton Rusere
• Alex Wharf
• Jacqueline Williams
The average audience for the final was 1.2 million in Australia which made it the most-watched women’s cricket match and the sixth-most watched cricket match ever on subscription television in Australian broadcasting history. This kind of turnout has truly made us believe that Women’s cricket is on a rise and is worthy of being on of the most marketable form of entertainment in the times to come.
