India to host 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup; Final set for Mullanpur

DUBAI: The 2025 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup will take place in India from September 29 to October 26, with the final scheduled at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Stadium in Mullanpur. Other host cities include Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram, Raipur, and Indore, as per ESPNcricinfo.

Among these venues, only Visakhapatnam has previously hosted an international women’s match. The ACA-VDCA Stadium last staged a women’s game in 2014 and has hosted six women’s T20Is and five women’s ODIs in total.

Indore, meanwhile, hosted two Women’s World Cup matches at the Nehru Stadium, which has since been replaced by the Holkar Stadium as the city’s primary international cricket venue.

India, as the host nation, has already secured its place in the tournament, along with Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. The final two spots will be determined through the Women’s World Cup Qualifiers, set to take place in Lahore on April 9.

The six-team qualifier tournament, which will take place in Pakistan from April 9, will finalise the remaining teams for the eight-team tournament later this year in India.

If Pakistan qualifies, their matches will be played in either the UAE or Sri Lanka, in line with a reciprocal agreement between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). This mirrors arrangements ahead of the 2025 Men’s Champions Trophy.

The bottom four ranked sides from the 2022-2025 ICC Women’s Championship – Bangladesh, West Indies, Pakistan and Ireland – will have a second shot at making it to the Women’s Cricket World Cup.

Scotland and Thailand also joined them in the qualifier tournament. They got their place based on being the next best-ranked teams in the ICC Women’s ODI Team Rankings.

This will be the first 50-over Women’s World Cup hosted by India since 2013, when the home team failed to progress beyond the group stage. India also hosted the Women’s T20 World Cup in 2016. The 2025 edition will follow the same format as the 2022 tournament, featuring eight teams competing across 31 matches.

India has yet to win the Women’s ODI World Cup, with its best performance coming in 2017, when it finished as runners-up to England. This edition will mark India’s first 50-over World Cup campaign without legends Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, both of whom have retired. (ANI)