Under-19 Women's World Cup 'very much on the cards' for January 2023, says Geoff Allardice

Geoff Allardice, the ICC CEO, has confirmed that the inaugural edition of the Women's Under-19 World Cup is "very much on the cards" and that the board will be seeking potential hosts for the tournament in the next few months. The competition was originally scheduled for 2021 in Bangladesh but was deferred to 2023 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The Under-19 Women's World Cup is in the schedule for January 2023," Allardice said. "Over the next couple of months, ahead of our April board meetings, we will be looking for potential hosts for that tournament with the hosts to be decided at the next board meetings. It's very much on the cards for next year."

Allardice said that the qualification events for the same will be conducted this year and the process, which will be similar to the Men's Under-19 World Cup, will be finalised before April.

"We are looking at a similar structure to the Men's Under-19 World Cup in terms of the number of teams and the opportunity for associate members to participate," he said. "This has been discussed for a couple of years now and Covid has postponed when we were going to play the first edition of it. What that has done has given some countries more time to get their programmes in place and get their squad structures organised, so I think the qualification will take place during 2022."

The decision to introduce a Women's Under-19 World Cup was made in October 2019, when Shashank Manohar was the chairman. The ICC release had stated that it was looking to conduct the global event every two years.