Cricket at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

A women’s cricket tournament will be held at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, during July and August 2022. It will be cricket’s first inclusion in the Commonwealth Games since a List A men’s tournament was held at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The matches will be played under Twenty20 format and there will only be a women’s tournament.

In April 2021 the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced all matches at the tournament would hold Twenty20 International status. The dates of the tournament were confirmed in June 2021.

Background

The next Commonwealth Games will be held in 2022 in Birmingham, England, from 27 July to 8 August and will see 4,500 athletes taking part. Under Commonwealth Games rules, all core Commonwealth sports must be hosted but additional sports may be added by the local organising committee. In November 2018, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) made a joint bid for a women’s Twenty20 tournament to be included. In August 2019, the Commonwealth Games Federation announced that the bid had been successful after a vote of all 71 Commonwealth Games Associations with women’s cricket being added to the 2022 programme along with beach volleyball and para table tennis. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), as custodian of the Laws of Cricket, welcomed the move and hoped it would eventually lead to cricket’s inclusion in the 2028 Summer Olympics.

The tournament will be played in Twenty20 format with eight teams qualifying. Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham will be the venue for the matches. Though there were suggestions for matches to also be held at the County Cricket Ground, Derby; New Road, Worcester; and Grace Road, Leicester, none of these were selected in the final confirmation.

Qualification

In November 2020, the ICC announced the qualification process for the 2022 Commonwealth Games tournament. England automatically qualify as the hosts, along with the six highest ranked sides as of 1 April 2021 as direct qualifiers. One further place will be awarded to the winners of a Commonwealth Games Qualifier tournament.

The allocation of the six direct qualifiers via the ICC Women’s T20I rankings will be dependant on the representation of at least four out of the six Commonwealth Games Federation regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Caribbean, Europe and Oceania). If at least four regions were not represented from those in the top seven, then teams ranked 8th to 10th were the first to be considered to meet the criteria, before filling the remaining allocations from the rankings. Each team can enter a squad of up to 15 athletes.

As the West Indies qualified as a direct qualifier, the results of a separate tournament were originally going to be used to determine which Commonwealth Games Association (CGA) earned qualification. The tournament was scheduled to be contested between Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and two composite teams representing the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands. However, in August 2021, Cricket West Indies (CWI) confirmed that the regional qualifier had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, Barbados were selected to represent the West Indies, by virtue of being the Twenty20 Blaze defending champions. The Commonwealth Games Qualifier, to determine the final team, took place in Malaysia in January 2022. Sri Lanka won the qualifier, beating Bangladesh by 22 runs in the final match of the tournament, to secure their place at the Commonwealth Games.

Means of qualification	Date	Venue	Berths	Qualified
Host nation	N/A	N/A	1	England
ICC Women’s T20I rankings	1 April 2021	N/A	5	Australia  India  New Zealand  South Africa  Pakistan
West Indies Region	N/A	N/A	1	Barbados
Commonwealth Games Qualifier	18–24 January 2022	Malaysia	1	Sri Lanka
Total			8

Fixtures

The schedule for the tournament was announced in June 2021, with the full list of fixtures being confirmed in November 2021.

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	NR	Pts	NRR
1	Australia	0	0	0	0	0	—
2	Barbados	0	0	0	0	0	—
3	India	0	0	0	0	0	—
4	Pakistan	0	0	0	0	0	—

29 July 2022 11:00 Scorecard

Australia	v	India

Edgbaston, Birmingham

29 July 2022 18:00 (D/N) Scorecard

Barbados	v	Pakistan

Edgbaston, Birmingham

31 July 2022 11:00 Scorecard

India	v	Pakistan

Edgbaston, Birmingham

31 July 2022 18:00 (D/N) Scorecard

Australia	v	Barbados

Edgbaston, Birmingham

3 August 2022 11:00 Scorecard

Australia	v	Pakistan

Edgbaston, Birmingham

3 August 2022 18:00 (D/N) Scorecard

Barbados	v	India

Edgbaston, Birmingham

Group B[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	NR	Pts	NRR
1	England	0	0	0	0	0	—
2	New Zealand	0	0	0	0	0	—
3	South Africa	0	0	0	0	0	—
4	Sri Lanka	0	0	0	0	0	—

30 July 2022 11:00 Scorecard

New Zealand	v	South Africa

Edgbaston, Birmingham

30 July 2022 18:00 (D/N) Scorecard

England	v	Sri Lanka

Edgbaston, Birmingham

2 August 2022 11:00 Scorecard

England	v	South Africa

Edgbaston, Birmingham

2 August 2022 18:00 (D/N) Scorecard

New Zealand	v	Sri Lanka

Edgbaston, Birmingham

4 August 2022 11:00 Scorecard

South Africa	v	Sri Lanka

Edgbaston, Birmingham

4 August 2022 18:00 (D/N) Scorecard

England	v	New Zealand

Edgbaston, Birmingham

Finals[edit]