The Women's Cricket World Cup is the quadrennial international championship of Women's One Day International Cricket tournament. Matches are played as

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s over 50 overs per team. There is also another championship for

Twenty20 International Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of Twenty20 cricket, in which each team plays a single innings with a maximum of twenty overs. The matches are played between international teams recognized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). ...

cricket, the Women's T20 World Cup. The World Cup is organised by the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the global Sports governing body, governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England, and South Africa. In 1965, the body wa ...

. Until 2005, when the two organisations merged, it was administered by a separate body, the International Women's Cricket Council. The first World Cup was held in England in 1973, two years before the inaugural men's tournament. The event's early years were marked by funding difficulties, which meant several teams had to decline invitations to compete and caused gaps of up to six years between tournaments. However, since 2005 World Cups have been hosted at regular four-year intervals. Qualification for the World Cup is through the ICC Women's Championship and the World Cup Qualifier. The composition of the tournament is extremely conservative – no new teams have debuted in the tournament since 1997, and since 2000 the number of teams in the World Cup has been fixed at eight. However, in March 2021, the ICC revealed that the tournament would expand to 10 teams from the 2029 edition. The 1997 edition was contested by a record eleven teams, the most in a single tournament to date. The twelve World Cups played to date have been held in five countries, with India and England having hosted the event three times.

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

is the most successful team, having won seven titles and failed to make the final on only three occasions.

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

(four titles) and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

(one title) are the only other teams to have won the event, while

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

(twice) and the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

(once) have each reached the final without going on to win.

2025 Women's Cricket World Cup

The 2025 ICC Women's Cricket World Cup will be hosted by

, with the tournament beginning on 30 September in

Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

, where the hosts face

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. All matches are scheduled as day-night fixtures with a 3 PM IST start. Pakistan's league matches will be held at a neutral venue in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which will host 11 round-robin games, including key fixtures involving

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

, and

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. Colombo is also a backup venue for Semifinal 1 and the Final should Pakistan qualify. Australia, the defending champions, will open their campaign against New Zealand on 1 October in Indore. Notable matches include India vs Pakistan on 5 October and India vs Australia on 12 October in Vizag. India concludes their league stage against Bangladesh on 26 October in Bengaluru. The top four teams from the round-robin stage will qualify for the semifinals (29 October), followed by the final on 2 November.

History

First World Cup

Women's international cricket was first played in 1934, when a party from England toured Australia and New Zealand. The first Test match was played on 28–31 December 1934, and was won by England. The first Test against New Zealand followed early the following year. These three nations remained the only Test playing teams in women's cricket until 1960, when South Africa played a number of matches against England.

Limited overs cricket Limited overs cricket, also known as white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed within one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty20 cricket (3-h ...

was first played by first-class teams in England in 1962. Nine years later, the first international one day match was played in men's cricket, when

took on

at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as the 'G, is a sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, the Lis ...

. Talks began in 1971 about holding a World Cup for women's cricket, led by Jack Hayward. South Africa, under pressure from the world for their apartheid laws, were not invited to take part in the competition. Both of the other two Test playing nations, Australia and New Zealand were invited. Hayward had previously organised tours of the West Indies by England women, and it was from this region that the other two competing nations were drawn;

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

and Trinidad & Tobago. To make up the numbers, England also fielded a "

Young England Young England was a Victorian era political group with a political message based on an idealised feudalism: an absolute monarch and a strong Established Church, with the philanthropy of '' noblesse oblige'' as the basis for its paternalistic ...

" team, and an " International XI" was also included. Five South Africans were invited to play for the International XI as a means of compensation for the team not being invited, but these invitations were later withdrawn. The inaugural tournament was held at a variety of venues across England in June and July 1973, two years before the first men's

Cricket World Cup The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial world cup for cricket in One Day International (ODI) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and consid ...

was played. The competition was played as a round-robin tournament, and the last scheduled match was England against Australia. Australia went into the game leading the table by a solitary point: they had won four matches and had one abandoned. England had also won four matches, but they had lost to New Zealand. As a result, the match also served as a de facto final for the competition. England won the match, held at

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...

, Birmingham by 92 runs to win the tournament.

Results

Fifteen teams have qualified for the Women's Cricket World Cup at least once (excluding qualification tournaments). Three teams have competed at every tournament, the same three sides who have won a title: England, Australia and New Zealand.

Finals

Teams' performances

;Legend * – Champions * – Runners-up * – Third place * – Losing semi-finalist (no third-place playoff) * – Losing quarter-finalist (no further playoffs) * — Hosts

Debutant teams

†No longer have ODI status. ‡No longer exists.

Overview

The table below provides an overview of the performances of teams over past World Cups, as of the end of the 2022 tournament. Teams are sorted by best performance, then by appearances, total number of wins, total number of games, and alphabetical order respectively. †No longer have ODI status. ‡No longer exists. * Teams are sorted by their best performance, then winning percentage, then (if equal) by alphabetical order.

Awards

Player of the Tournament

Player of the Final

Other results

Results of host teams

Results of defending champions

Tournament records

References

Bibliography

External links

Women's World Cup match records
from the

Cricinfo WomenWinning Squads
{{Main world cups

Recurring sporting events established in 1973 International Cricket Council events Women's One Day International cricket competitions World championships in cricket World cups