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Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter

HOSTS Zimbabwe will step up for the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier when they host the Bangladesh women’s cricket team for a three-match One-Day International series in November.

The series will be the last for both teams before they enter the bio-bubble for the 10-team ODI World Cup Qualifier to be played in Harare.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board confirmed the talks between the two boards.

“The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and Zimbabwe Cricket have had talks regarding this series and it was decided our women’s team will be play three ODIs against Zimbabwe ahead of the World Cup Qualifier,”

Shafiul Alam Chowdhury Nadel, the head of BCB’s women cricket wing told ESPNcricinfo.

“We have stuck to just the ODI matches for the bilateral series because the qualifier are in the one-day format and it will serve as an important preparatory exercise for our team in terms of getting match time before the qualifier.”

The Women’s ODI World Cup Qualifier 2021 to be played in Zimbabwe will decide the final three spots for the 2022 World Cup.

The Qualifier will be played between November 21 and December 5 in Harare.

The qualifiers were originally meant to be hosted by Sri Lanka in July 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the tournament, as well as the main event in New Zealand.

The ten teams, vying for the three World Cup spots, will include Pakistan, West Indies, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Ireland – and the five regional qualifiers who won their respective competitions in 2019.

Hosts Zimbabwe are the Africa regional qualifiers, Thailand are from Asia, Papua New Guinea represent Asia East-Pacific, Netherlands are the European winners and United States of America will play as Americas champions.

While the top three make it to the eight-team ODI World Cup in March-April 2022, the next two teams from the competition will also secure their places in the next ICC Women’s Championship.