Women’s T20 WC: Australia begin title defence on October 5; India vs Pakistan set for October 6

Defending champions Australia will play in UAE for the first time ever on October 5, when they open their Women’s T20 World Cup campaign against Sri Lanka, the current Asia Cup champions. India, meanwhile, will open their tournament a day earlier, against New Zealand, in Dubai.

Apart from India and Australia, two other sides – England and West Indies – will be featuring in a T20I on UAE shores for the first time during the 10-team event that has had to be moved out of Bangladesh owing to country-wide agitations that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led regime earlier this month.

The updated fixtures for the tournament were unveiled on Monday, with matches split equally across Dubai and Sharjah for the group stages. Australia will play three of their four group fixtures in Sharjah, while India play three games in Dubai.

India have been drawn to play Pakistan in an afternoon game on October 6 in Dubai, while South Africa, finalists of 2022, and England will play their heavyweight Group B clash the following day in Sharjah. The marquee India vs Australia fixture, a rematch of the 2022 semi-final, is slated to be held on October 13 in Sharjah.

Dubai is slated to host the first semi-final, which is also the one allotted to India should they qualify, on October 17, while Sharjah hosts the second semi-final on October 18. Dubai will host the tournament finale on October 20. Both semi-finals and the final have been allotted a reserve day, unlike at the men’s T20 World Cup in June where the semi-final involving India wasn’t allotted a reserve day.

Among the participating teams, Scotland and Sri Lanka are the only teams to have most recently when they featured in the Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifiers 2024. While Sri Lanka won all six, Scotland won four out of their six games, to qualify for the tournament. All those games, however, were held at the Tolerance Oval in Abu Dhabi.

Interestingly, Dubai hasn’t hosted a single women’s T20I. All teams, however, will play two warm-up fixtures each from September 28 to October 3 to acclimatise.

Each side will play four group matches, with the top two teams from each group progressing to the semi-finals. Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are in Group A, while South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh and Scotland constitute Group B. The afternoon games will begin at 2pm local time, while the evening games, semi-finals and final included, will begin at 6pm.