England women’s team captain Heather Knight feels “pretty gutted” about the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) decision to postpone the Women’s World Cup from 2021 to 2022 and said the quadrennial event was feasible in New Zealand this year. Knight expressed hope that boards will not use it as an excuse to neglect women’s cricket. “Pretty gutted to be honest. I know tough decisions have to be made right now and it would have taken a lot of work (and $$), but it was feasible in NZ. Hopefully, it is not an excuse for boards to put women’s cricket on the back burner for the next 12 months with no WC to prepare for,” Knight tweeted.

Pretty gutted to be honest. I know tough decisions have to be made right now & it would have taken a lot of work (and $$), but it was feasible in NZ. Hopefully it’s not an excuse for boards to put women’s cricket on the back burner for the next 12 months with no WC to prepare for https://t.co/a2jXOlySua

Heather Knight (@Heatherknight55) August 8, 2020

On August 7, the ICC announced that the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand has been postponed until February-March 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The format of the postponed ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup will remain as it was for 2021. Five teams have already qualified for the event and that will stand for 2022.

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The original global qualification event to determine the final three teams to contest the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup was scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in July this year but was postponed due to COVID-19. The qualification event will now be held in 2021.

“We have taken the decision to move the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup to give players from every competing nation, the best opportunity to be ready for the world’s biggest stage and there is still a global qualifier to complete to decide the final three teams,” ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney had said.