Malaysia is going to host the Women’s U-19 T20 World Cup 2025 edition from January18, right after 17years they are again gaining hosting rights, before that they hosted a global tournament. Initially, the tournament was planned to be co-hosted by Malaysia and Thailand, but ICC has decided that the entire tournament will be hosted by Malaysia, because cricket stadiums in Thailand were not functional completely. Four venues are selected for the tournament which are, Bayuemas Oval and UKM YSD Oval in Selangor, the JCA Oval in Johor, and Borneo Cricket Ground in Sarawak.
The first edition of Women’s Under-19 T20 World Cup was played in 2023, where the Indian team got victory against England under Shafali Verma’s leadership in South Africa.
The World Cup is going to start from January 18 where Australia, England, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa and Bangladesh all are going to play on the opening day. Nigeria and Samoa both are going to play their first ever Women’s U-19 World Cup also on that day. The semi-finals are scheduled on January 31 and the final game will happen on February 2.
Just like the first edition, it’s also a 16-team event. Other than Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, all other ten teams are participating, who automatically qualified based on their ranking in the first edition, whereas Malaysia got the direct entry as a host. The remaining five teams are selected through the regional qualifiers.
Nepal (Asia), USA (Americas), Nigeria (Africa), Samoa (Asia Pacific) and Scotland (Europe), these teams made their space in World Cup through regional qualifying rounds. Among these teams, Samoa is going to play their first-ever ICC tournament, either men’s or women’s. Whereas hosts Malaysia, Nepal, and Nigeria are going to play their first women’s Under-19 World Cup.
Rwanda, Zimbabwe, UAE and Indonesia who played the first edition, but they all haven’t qualified for this tournament.
Unlike the men’s Under-19 World Cup, which is a 50-overs event, the women’s tournament will be played in a T20 format.
Men’s U-19 World Cup was a 50-overs tournament, but Women’s Under-19 will be a T20 format.
The 16 teams are divided into four groups each having four participants, playing in a round-robin format. The top three from each group make it to the Super Six Stage consisting of 12 teams.
In the Super Six stage of the tournament, teams retain points from the group stage, which dominates their position. Each team competes in two matches against teams from the opposite group at the Super Six stage, and the top two teams from each group will play the semi-finals.
Here are the groupings of all teams;
GROUP A: India West Indies Sri Lanka Malaysia
GROUP B: England Pakistan Ireland USA
GROUP C: New Zealand South Africa Nigeria Samoa
GROUP D: Australia Bangladesh Nepal Scotland
The top performing three teams from Group A and group D will be placed in Group 1, whereas three teams from Group B and Group C will be in Group 2 in Super Six stage.
