In the previous tournament, the first three WODIs counted towards qualification. However, for this tournament, the International Cricket Council (ICC) requested that additional matches are played as Women's Twenty20 Internationals (WT20Is).[2] Inline with the updated ICC rules, two balls were used for the first time in WODI matches.[5]
When originally announced in October 2017, the top three teams, along with hosts New Zealand, would qualify for the World Cup.[1][6] In October 2018, the qualification structure was changed allowing the hosts plus the top four teams to qualify directly for 2022 World Cup.[3]
In March 2019, England beat Sri Lanka 3–0. The result meant that Sri Lanka Women could no longer qualify directly for the 2022 Women's Cricket World Cup, progressing to the 2021 Women's Cricket World Cup Qualifier tournament instead.[10] In September 2019, the ICC confirmed that Australia were the first team to qualify for the World Cup.[11] In October 2019, Australia took an unassailable points lead to win the ICC Women's Championship trophy for the second time in a row.[12][13] In February 2020, the Australian team were presented with the ICC Women's Championship trophy, ahead of their Women's Twenty20 International (WT20I) match against India.[14]
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the series between South Africa and Australia in March 2020.[15] Two unscheduled series, New Zealand against Sri Lanka and Pakistan against India, were also thrown into doubt due to the pandemic.[16] On 3 April 2020, New Zealand Cricket confirmed that their planned tour of Sri Lanka, scheduled to take place in April, had been cancelled due to the pandemic.[17] However, the result of the series would have no impact on the final standings, as Sri Lanka had already been eliminated, and New Zealand had progressed to the World Cup as hosts.[18] On 15 April 2020, the ICC confirmed that the points would be shared for the three series that were not played.[19]
Results
The breakdown of results is as follows. During each round, each team played against its opponent three times.
The round six fixtures between Pakistan and India should have taken place by the end of November 2019. However, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) did not receive an invitation to play the series from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), with the matter referred to the ICC Technical Committee.[45] The series did not go ahead due to a force majeure event, with the BCCI demonstrating it could not get government clearance to play against Pakistan.[46] Points were shared between the teams.
Two round seven fixtures, South Africa hosting Australia and Sri Lanka hosting New Zealand, did not go ahead as scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[47][48] Points were shared between the teams.
