The International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced a revised schedule for the Women's Cricket World Cup 2025 on Friday, August 22, starting on September 30. The ICC, alongside BCCI, had to alter the schedule due to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru's last-minute venue cancellation. While Trivandrum was set to get the nod in place of Bengaluru, Navi Mumbai is the fourth venue chosen for the showpiece event, alongside Guwahati, Visakhapatnam, Indore, & Colombo.
The Harmanpreet Kaur-led India will play the WC opener against Sri Lanka on September 30 in Guwahati, which was originally supposed to be played in Bengaluru. After playing a match against the Island nation, the Kaur-led side will play arch-rivals Pakistan on October 05 in Colombo. Notably, all Pakistan's matches will be played in Colombo, as part of the mutual agreement between the BCCI & PCB boards to play IND vs PAK matches in a neutral venue.
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After playing Pakistan, India will battle it out with South Africa on October 9 in Visakhapatnam, before playing Australia at the same venue on 12th October.
Navi Mumbai chosen as venue for WCW 2025 final
Notably, Navi Mumbai has been chosen as the venue to host the WCW 2025 final. The summit clash will be played on November 02. However, if Pakistan manages to reach the final, then the match will be played in Colombo. However, the chances of Women in Green reaching that stage is a far fetched thought. Guwahati has been allotted to host one of the two semi-final matches on October 29th. However, again, the match will only proceed if Pakistan fails to make the knockout stages of the WC.
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The second semi-final game will be played in Navi Mumbai on October 30. India has announced a strong 15-member squad for the showpiece event, which will see Harmanpreet Kaur as the captain. Besides the leader, the squad also possesses match-winning players like Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, and Renuka Thakur. The squad has a nice blend of youth and experience. India, which have never won the WCW event, will look to emulate the success of the Men's team, when they went onto win a home WC in 2011. The Women's team has played two finals in the 2015 & 2017 tournaments.
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Speaking about Bengaluru, it has not hosted any international match since the nightmarish stampede incident on June 04. The last match it hosted was on May 17 when RCB faced KKR. In the aftermath of the stampede, which saw 11 people killed, the state government has held KSCA and RCB responsible for mismanagement of the victory parade, and instituted a one-member committee to look into the matter. Since then, the stadium has been deemed unsafe to host large-scale events. The police have also refused to grant permission to host KSCA to host Maharaja T20 games in Bengaluru.
Women's World Cup Squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti (VC), Pratika Rawal, Harleen Deol, Deepti, Jemimah, Renuka, Arundhati Reddy, Richa Ghosh (WK), Kranti Gaud, Amanjot Kaur, Radha Yadav, Sree Charani, Yastika Bhatia (WK), Sneh Rana
