Pakistan successfully booked their spot in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 on Tuesday after being the next highest-ranking team in the ICC Women’s T20I Team Rankings outside of the six direct qualifiers and the hosts.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa received direct qualification after being the top three teams of Group 1 in the league stage of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023, while England, India and the West Indies similarly made it from Group 2.
Bangladesh qualified as the host of the ninth edition of the tournament while Pakistan qualified after being the next highest-ranked team in the ICC Women’s T20I Team Rankings as of February 27, 2023.
The remaining two spots will be filled through a Global Qualifier to be held in early 2024. The dates and venues of this tournament are yet to be announced.
From the teams who played in this year’s tournament, Sri Lanka and Ireland are the teams failing to get direct qualification. Sri Lanka are currently ranked eighth in the rankings while Ireland are 10th.
It must be noted that Australia won the Women’s T20 World Cup for the sixth time when they beat South Africa by 19 runs in the final at Newlands on Sunday.
Opening batter Beth Mooney anchored the Australian innings, scoring an unbeaten 74 in a total of 156 for six.
South Africa were never up with the required run rate and were restricted to 137 for six despite opener Laura Wol-vaardt hitting 61 off 48 balls.
Mooney believes Australia’s hunger for winning helped them clinch victory in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 final.
“We want to continue winning as many as there is out there. We don’t get tired of it,” said Mooney.
“Something we speak about as a group is making sure we’re always evolving along the way, I think we’ve seen in this tournament, there are teams around the world getting better and better as the years go on.”
“And we know that we’re being hunted, people are looking at us for what we do, and how we go about it, so cer-tainly, it won’t last forever.”
“But we’ll enjoy it for as long as we can, and hopefully we can keep piling up those trophies and enjoying our streak.”—APP
