ICC has announced the venues that are to host the ICC World T20 events for men”s and women”s events in 2020 in Australia.
The two events will be standalone events with the women”s event taking place in March and the Men”s one to take place in October-November as ICC announced on Tuesday the 30th Jan.
The Women”s event will be the second such standalone t20 world event for women”s cricket with the first being held in Westindies this year.
The women”s competition will run from February 21 to March 8, while the men”s will be held from October 18 to November 15. The tournaments will receive equal billing with both finals to be held at the MCG – the same venue which hosted the 2015 ODI World Cup and attracted a cricket record of 93,013 fans.
Meg Lanning, the Australian women”s captain, was excited about the prospect of a massive crowd for the final in 2020. “I”ve been in the crowd watching people play out there in front of 90,000 people and potentially the opportunity to be out there in the middle for that is really exciting,” she said on Tuesday.
Dave Richardson, the ICC chief executive, hoped records would be broken in 2020. “I”d like to thank Cricket Australia and their partners in Government at all levels for their commitment to the T20 WC in 2020,” he said. “The ambition they have shown firstly in delivering stand-alone men”s and women”s events and then in the venue selection that will I hope set a record for the biggest ever attendance at a women”s sporting event is exciting for the sport.”
Women”s event will be a 10 team competition, with equal groups followed by the knock out games. The same format is applied to the Men”s event which will be 12 teams competition.
Women”s event will see group games played at WACA Ground, Melbourne”s Junction Oval, Canberra”s Manuka Oval and Sydney”s Spotless Stadium, with warm-ups played at Brisbane”s Allan Border Field and Adelaide”s Gladys Elphick Park. The semi-finals will be played at the SCG.
Along with the MCG, SCG and the Adelaide Oval, men”s matches will be played at Perth Stadium, Geelong”s Kardinia Park, the Gabba and Blundstone Arena in Hobart. The SCG and the Adelaide Oval will host the semi-finals, in a blow for Perth Stadium which was keen to host one of the showpiece matches.
And both the finals will be played at the MCG ground as the ICC expects to see humongous crowds for the showpiece games.