Seventeen years ago, Charlotte Edwards and the England Women’s team lifted the inaugural ICC Women’s T20 World Cup at Lord’s. Next year we will host the tournament once more. Hopefully, the team, with Charlotte now the Head Coach, can repeat that performance. But hosting this tournament is about much more than just a moment in time to lift a trophy – it is a unique opportunity to redefine the landscape of women's cricket.
The growth of the women's game in recent years is nothing short of remarkable. From an average attendance of just over 1,500 for England Women in 2014 to more than a million fans flocking to watch women’s matches in The Hundred across its first four editions. From no professional players, to more than 135 full-time female cricketers this summer. This growth is a testament to an intentional focus and collective effort dedicated to elevating the women's game.
However, despite those impressive statistics, women's sport continues to grapple with three critical issues: visibility, perception, and care. In the UK, women's sport receives a mere 6% of all primetime sports programming on TV; 40% of the public still view cricket as a sport primarily for men and boys; and sports fans care 29% less about the success of the England women's cricket team compared to their male counterparts. These gaps highlight the continued effort required for women's sport to secure its rightful place in society.
The ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 offers a golden opportunity to address these challenges head-on. It is a chance to convert the burgeoning global enthusiasm for women's sport into long-term, systemic change about how people think, feel and behave around women’s cricket.
The vision for this tournament is clear: to break women's cricket into the mainstream and ensure it stays there.
It’s our time to come together and take women’s cricket where it belongs: centre stage. To capture hearts and minds and create passionate fans, not just attendees or casual observers. To embed new norms. New standards. New futures. A future where women’s cricket dominates social feeds, group chats, and daily conversations, becoming as essential to our cultural fabric as our morning scroll.
Every girl across the country and around the world should have the same opportunity to access and fall in love with cricket as a boy. Every girl who dreams of hitting a six or taking a diving catch deserves to see her heroes celebrated on the world stage. The talent, dedication, and sheer grit of our female cricketers deserves the same spotlight, the same investment, and the same respect as their male counterparts.
To achieve this, the tournament aims to deliver ground-breaking attendance figures, unparalleled viewership, and iconic recognition for female cricketers. The goal is to double the attendance of the largest previous ICC Women's T20 World Cup, making the 2026 tournament the hottest ticket in town. Sold-out stadiums producing mainstream vibes.
Moreover, the ambition is to stage the most-watched international women's cricket event in history. By working with broadcast partners, commercial sponsors, and the media, the tournament will ensure unprecedented visibility for women's cricket. Elevating the profile of players to household names to inspire millions and establish an emotional connection with fans, transcending the boundary rope and launching female cricketers into global stardom.
Financially, the aim is to deliver the highest-grossing women's cricket event ever, redefining the commercial value of the women's game and establishing a sustainable, long-term financial future. This will be complemented by galvanising cultural change in the grassroots, through quadrupling the number of female leaders in recreational cricket clubs to spark a revolution in the bedrock of the sport.
The ultimate measure of success will be the creation of a new tribe of passionate, engaged, and committed women's cricket fans. This transformation will signal if the 2026 T20 World Cup has succeeded in creating long-term behaviour change, moving attendees from casual observers to lifelong fans.
Achieving this vision will require radical collaboration. We need broadcasters to amplify visibility and production quality, sponsors to invest equally, media to tell deeper stories, government to support with policy, and sports bodies to invest across the entire women's and girls' ecosystem.
The ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 is not just another tournament, another moment in time; it’s a movement to rewrite the narrative of women's cricket. Out with the moments, in with the mainstream. Join us, be with us, and let's make it stick.