The inaugural Women’s Champions Trophy set to take place from February 14-28 next year, was on Wednesday shifted to India from original hosts Sri Lanka by the International Cricket Council (ICC). 

All the matches of the six-team event will be played at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai and the Vadodara International Cricket Stadium in Vadodara. The tournament is set to be played in T20I format.

“The event was originally scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka, but has now been moved to India as Sri Lanka Cricket continues to make the requisite reforms outlined at the ICC’s Annual Conference in July. The ICC assessed three candidates to host the tournament – Bangladesh, India and South Africa – against their established host evaluation criteria before recommending India as the replacement host, a decision ratified by the ICC Board on 1 September,” the ICC said in a release.

The teams taking part in the tournament will be Australia, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka. 

The six teams will compete in a round-robin league, with the top two sides advancing to the final on February 28. India are the current holders of the Women’s ODI World Cup while Australia are the Women’s T20 World Cup champions after having reclaimed the title this July in England.

A couple of days ago, the ICC had taken away hosting rights of the tournament from Sri Lanka due to government interference in the administration of Sri Lanka Cricket, as per a report.

“Yes, it has been moved out of Sri Lanka. It will be played at another venue, but as of now, I am not sure where it will be played,” Prakash Shaffter, Secretary of the SLC Transformation Committee, was quoted as saying by The Sunday Times as per PTI.

The current SLC administration is being run by a government-appointed Transformation Committee. It was brought in place to oversee board’s reforms, and changes to its constitution and governance. 

“The ICC does not recognise politically appointed interim administrations and has refused to allow SLC representatives to attend ICC Board meetings since the Transformation Committee took over,” the report said.

Source: The Indian Express

--Agencies