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ICC Women's T20 World Cup Preview
The 2026 ICC Women's T20 World Cup will take place in England for the first time since the inaugural tournament in 2009 when England won their only title.
New Zealand will be the defending champions, having beaten South Africa in the 2024 final in the UAE, ending Australia's run of wins.
We will see a change in 2026, the number of countries competing is rising to 12 for the first time, which is an additional two teams to compete compared to 2024.
ICC Men's T20 World Cup Preview & Betting Guide
2026 ICC Women's T20 World Cup Format
How many teams will participate?
As already mentioned, there will be 12 teams taking part in the WC. England gets an automatic berth because they are the official hosts. Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and West Indies all qualify because they were among the top five teams at the last World Cup.
There will be between two and four teams who qualify through the T20I Rankings (Pakistan & Sri Lanka already confirmed) and then two to four based on the qualifying matches.
What are the T20 World Cup Groups?
With the expansion to twelve teams in 2026, the format will have to change and details of that are yet to be decided, the obvious change would be expanding the two groups to six teams although they may look to expand to the groups to three of four teams, we will update once the details have been confirmed.
Who makes it to the Knockout Stage?
Like the group stages, how the knockout stages will take shape is yet to be decided, whilst we wait on details, you can find last year's knockout below.
ICC Women's T20 World Cup Betting Tips
Remember that we will cover all of the group matches as well as the knock-out matches which means the OLBG cricket tipsters will be bringing you their best cricket bets throughout the tournament.
You can also head over to the Best Cricket Tipsters page to see what the crème de la crème of cricket tipsters are backing, on this page, we only display profitable cricket tipsters.
If you are out and about during the T20 World Cup or, if you are heading the the games yourself, be sure to download and install the OLBG App and get cricket tips no matter where you are!
ICC Women's T20 World Cup Past Winners
Here are the past winners of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup, Australia has been dominant in this tournament as you can see here.
| Year | Hosts | Winners | Result | Runners-Up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | U.A.E | New Zealand 158/5 (20 overs) | Won by 32 runs | South Africa 126/9 (20 overs) |
| 2023 | South Africa | Australia 156/6 (20 overs) | Won by 19 runs | South Africa 137/6 (20 overs) |
| 2020 | Australia | Australia 184/4 (20 overs) | Won by 85 runs | India 99 (19.1 overs) |
| 2018 | West Indies | Australia 106/2 (15.1 overs) | Won by 8 wickets | England 105 (19.4 overs) |
| 2016 | India | West Indies 149/2 (19 overs) | Won by 8 wickets | Australia 148/5 (20 overs) |
| 2014 | Bangladesh | Australia 106/4 (15 overs) | Won by 6 wickets | England 105/8 (20 overs) |
| 2012 | Sri Lanka | Australia 142/4 (20 overs) | Won by 4 runs | England 138/9 (20 overs) |
| 2010 | West Indies | Australia 106/8 (20 overs) | Won by 3 runs | New Zealand 103/6 (20 overs) |
| 2009 | England | England 86/4 (17 overs) | Won by 6 wickets | New Zealand 85 (20 overs) |
ICC Women's T20 World Cup Country Performances
Considering that they have won six of the nine tournaments, it is no surprise to see Australia top the performance charts, they have won over 80% of their matches.
Some would argue that England has been unlucky as a team who have won 75% of their games and yet have only picked up one tournament win, they have been losing finalists on three occasions, all to Australia!
Here are the performances of the twelve countries that have previously taken part in the ICC Women's T20 World Cup:
| Country | App | Games | Won | Lost | Tied | NR | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 9 | 49 | 39 | 9 | 1(1) | 0 | 80.61% |
| England | 9 | 42 | 31 | 10 | 1(0) | 0 | 75.00% |
| New Zealand | 9 | 42 | 29 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 69.04% |
| West Indies | 9 | 39 | 23 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 58.97% |
| South Africa | 9 | 39 | 18 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 46.15% |
| India | 9 | 40 | 22 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 55.00% |
| Sri Lanka | 9 | 35 | 10 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 28.57% |
| Pakistan | 9 | 36 | 9 | 26 | 0 | 1 | 25.71% |
| Bangladesh | 6 | 25 | 3 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 12.00% |
| Ireland | 4 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Scotland | 1 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Thailand | 1 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% |
ICC Women's T20 World Cup Records
Highest Innings Total
The 213/5 set by England during the 2023 tournament against Pakistan in Cape Town is the highest total set by a team at the WC with the 81 not out from Nat Sciver-Brunt from just 40 balls playing a big part of that total.
The score is the only one in the history of this tournament of over 200, the closest any team has come to it was when South Africa set 195 during the 2020 tournament and one behind that is India with 194 during the 2018 WC.
Biggest Win Margin
The already mentioned game where England scored 213 is also the biggest win margin because in reply Pakistan only scored 99 giving England a 114-run win.
There are only three winning margins by over 100 runs, the already mentioned England win, South Africa won by 113 against Thailand (2020) and the 102-run victory by New Zealand against Sri Lanka (2023).
In terms of wickets, there have been six ten-wicket victories, the latest of those came in the 2024 tournament when England chased down the 110 set by Scotland without losing a single wicket.
Biggest Match Aggregate
The Providence Stadium in Guyana during the 2016 WC is home to the biggest match aggregate score, India set New Zealand a total of 195 to chase, they only got 160 but still, the combined score of 354 is the biggest the WC has seen.
That is the only game to go over 340 runs at the T20 World Cup, the next closest is the 339 set by Australia (172) and India (167) during the 2023 tournament.
Lowest Innings Total
Bangladesh holds two of the three lowest totals at the T20 World Cup, in 2014 against England from their 20 overs they scored just 58 runs but went even worse in 2018 against the West Indies when chasing a 107 target, they were bowled out for just 46 runs.
Pakistan doesn't have a great record either, their 2024 score of just 56 slotted in as the second-worst performance and they now hold three of the worst six scores in this tournament history.
There have been a large number of teams scoring under 100, the top 10 lowest scores see the highest of those being just 71 runs and for the top 20, the highest score is just 78!
Lowest Match Aggregate
There have not been too many low-scoring games, the majority of these came in the earlier tournaments which would suggest the quality has improved as the years have gone by, of the top 20 lowest match scores, two are from 2020 and the rest before then.
Only one match saw under 100 runs and that came at the 2012 tournament, although this match was affected by the weather so it was a shortened version, Sri Lanka scored 50 off 10.3 overs and the West Indies were set a target of 48 from 8 overs, they only got to 42 making the match score 92 runs.
The lowest scoring where the game was not affected in any way came in 2010, Pakistan scored just 65 from their 20 overs and was successfully chased down by New Zealand who scored 71 for a match total of 136 which is the lowest of any normal game.
Contributor Information
We take great pride in the information provided in our cricket betting previews and ICC Women's T20 World Cup Preview & Betting Guide is no exception. James and Andy work seamlessly together to collate and present the data in this superb guide to this event
Cricket Tips and Event Manager
Content editor
Records were sourced from ESPN cricinfo and past winners and team information from Wikipedia.
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