ICC chief hails 'outstanding' Women's World Cup standard

LONDON:

England and Australia may be into the T20 World Cup final at Lord's on Sunday but the performances of emerging nations have led the global head of the women's game to hail the "outstanding" cricket on display at the whole tournament.

Concerns were raised about whether the women's game had the depth to cope with an event expanded from 10 teams to 12.

But the likes of Scotland, who thrashed Ireland by 40 runs, have more than played their part.

The Scots challenged several established teams and almost defeated Sri Lanka, while Ireland ended a 12-year wait for a maiden World Cup win by beating the West Indies, the 2016 champions.

"I think it's been outstanding in terms of the standard of cricket that we've seen," Snehal Pradhan, the International Cricket Council's manager of women's cricket, told AFP in an interview.

"The number of scores well above the 150-160 mark are a mark of an entertaining tournament. And some of those scores are being chased down -- you're not just having one team putting up a big score and the other team falling short.

"We've seen that even from the likes of Scotland, who have relied on their lower order to be able to get them scores of more than 150-160."

Title-holders New Zealand and 50-over world champions both failed to reach the semi-finals, with former India seamer Pradhan saying that was a sign of "the overall competitive levels of the tournament".

A crowd of some 27,000 witnessed last week's double-header at Lord's, where South Africa just snuck past Bangladesh before Australia knocked India out of the tournament.

Another capacity attendance is expected at the 'Home of Cricket' for Sunday's final.

"I'm almost sad that we don't have grounds here that are bigger than maybe the 27,000 capacity we've seen at Lord's, which has been the highest so far, because I feel some of these matches would have gone more than the 27,000 that showed up," said Pradhan.

This tournament has also witnessed the return of several players who had previously retired from international duty, notably South Africa fast bowler Shabnim Ismail, who featured in the Proteas semi-final loss to England.

Pradhan, citing the importance of equal prize money at ICC's men's and women's tournaments, said: "Prize-money parity at our events in the last few years has been game-changing. Maybe it's a factor in a few stars returning to the international game after having retired?"

Away from the World Cup, cricket will return to the Olympics for the first time in over a hundred years with men's and women's T20 medals up for grabs at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles -- something Pradhan believes is vital to the sport's global expansion beyond established nations once part of the British Empire.