ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 moved to UAE from Bangladesh

The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 venue has been shifted to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed in a statement on Tuesday.

The tournament will take place across the two venues in the UAE - Dubai and Sharjah - from October 3 to October 20 with no changes in dates of the scheduled matches.

The ninth edition of the cricket tournament was supposed to be hosted by Bangladesh but was moved out due to the political unrest in the country.

“It is a shame not to be hosting the Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh as we know the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) would have staged a memorable event,” ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice said in a statement.

“I would like to thank the team at the BCB for exploring all avenues to try and enable the event to be hosted in Bangladesh but travel advisories from the governments of a number of the participating teams meant that was not feasible,” Allardice added.

The BCB, however, will retain the hosting rights and stage the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 alongside the Emirates Cricket Board. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe had also placed offers to take over as hosts.

The UAE, home of the ICC headquarters, has hosted a number of global cricketing events, including the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 alongside Oman.

The Australian women’s cricket team will enter the competition as three-time defending champions. Australia have won the title six times in the last seven editions.

England, champions of the inaugural edition in 2009, and West Indies, champions in 2016, are the only other teams to have won the Women’s T20 World Cup titles.