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DUBAI. — The International Cricket Council yesterday unveiled their growth strategy, developed in partnership with the members, that places women’s cricket at the forefront.

The growth strategy will also help strengthen and grow the game across the globe with a vision of making it accessible to more nations, players and fans.

The ICC gave a detailed account as to how they intend to strengthen, grow and protect the game digitally. In order to strengthen the sport, ICC have promised to deliver more cricket for all members and also invest in women’s cricket.

Independent ICC chair Greg Barclay and newly-appointed full-time CEO Geoff Allardice spoke about how ICC were going to help women’s cricket bounce back in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The last 12 months have been a bit uneven in terms of how much cricket the national women’s teams are playing, but we have just started in Zimbabwe with the qualifiers for the World Cup and it’s a really important tournament not only for who gets to play in the World Cup but also who gets to play in the next edition of the ICC Women’s Championship,” said Allardice.

“We are looking forward to a big 12 months.

“We have got the Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand and then the Commonwealth Games in July and August in Birmingham. In early 2023, we have got a Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa.”

President Mnangagwa is joined by (from left) Sports Commission chairman, Gerald Mlotshwa, Commissioner Karen Mutasa, Zimbabwe Cricket chairman, Tavengwa Mukuhlani, Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister, Kirsty Coventry, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister, Kazembe Kazembe and ZC chief executive, Givemore Makoni, in a group photo, at the official welcoming ceremony, for teams taking part in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier

Barclay said women tournaments needed to be given the same status as their male counterparts. “I think it is really important that we ensure that women’s events have an equal standing and same amount of recognition as the men’s events,” said Barclay.

“We are desperate to ensure that we get the women’s event in New Zealand in the time-frame. It’s been postponed once for 12 months.

“There’s no doubt that with Covid we had challenges around the scheduling and hosting of all events and women’s cricket is no different. “There have been plenty of women’s events and the future of the women’s game is really exciting. We are going to ensure that we continue to maintain and support the obvious growth potential that it has got.

“Getting an event away in a few months’ time is going to be pivotal in enabling us to do that. From what I have seen and I have got the advantage of being down in New Zealand, it should be a great tournament.”

While the limited-overs events have always drawn attention, the introduction of the World Test Championship has helped the longer format stay relevant on a global scale.

Speaking on the success of the World Test Championship, Barclay said, “We are always at the drawing board with all of our events and making sure that the fans are getting what they want. “I think the two-year iteration of the World Test Championship was incredibly successful. The fans really bought into it.

“There will be some things that we will take out of it as there is with every event that we run.

‘’We will try to implement those to make it even better for the second iteration and beyond. “Test cricket is part of the landscape, it is here to stay. WTC is a good addition to the calendar. We will continue to work through things we can do to improve it and hopefully the next will be better than the previous one.” — ICC