With the first ever stand-alone International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Women’s World T20 done and dusted in the Caribbean, results show that it has attracted global notice.
Prior to the tournament, one of the main aims was to draw attention to women’s cricket and this it has done.
According to the official count, over 10,000 people were at the venue for the playoffs and final for which Prime Minister of Antigua, Gaston Browne thanked the population in what he labelled as one, if not the largest turnout at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
Despite the rain, the tournament has produced some spectacular performances. At Providence, Guyana, India made 194, the highest score in any T20I played at the venue. That same night, Deandra Dottin of the West Indies bagged 5-5 which is also the best bowling figures in T20I at the venue for both men and women cricket also the third overall for women.
Sophie Devine and tournament Most Valuable Player, Alyssa Healy scored 21-ball half centuries. Only Devine had scored a 50 faster taking 18 balls to do so back in 2005.
The records continued to be broken in the tournament with Providence, the venue with the second most matches for women’s T20I, fielding three matches for the first time in history.
It is no surprise that ICC’s head of events Chris Tetley said that the tournament had more viewership than the 2017 Champions trophy.
He stated “I believe women cricket’s popularity has increased significantly over the past year or so, particularly since the last women’s world cup in England 2017”. He added “ICC recently ran a global survey that established there are over a billion cricket fans in the world and over 70 percent wanted to see more women’s cricket so there is a great drive for the game and we can see why people are starting to enjoy it.”
This large increase Tetley attributed to the improvement on digital views which he notes were over 20 million in just a week.
Australia’s captain, Meg Lanning threw her hat in the ring and said the crowds across the Caribbean had been outstanding with some of the girls never playing in front of such a large audience.
