The 2026 ICC Women's T20 World Cup was the tenth edition of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup and was hosted by the England and Wales Cricket Board from 12 June to 5 July 2026. England had previously hosted the inaugural competition in 2009. A total of twelve teams competed in 33 matches across seven venues in England.
The number of participants was increased from ten teams to twelve, which included a host team, top five teams from the previous edition, the two highest-ranked teams in the ICC Women's T20I Team Rankings not already qualified, and four other teams determined through a series of qualifiers. Netherlands qualified for the Women's T20 World Cup for the first time.
New Zealand were the defending champions and were eliminated in the group stage. Australia defeated England by 7 wickets in the final to win their record seventh title. Teams that finished higher from the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania: South Africa, India, Great Britain (taking the place of England) and Australia respectively qualified for Cricket at the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Background
The ICC Women's T20 World Cup is a biennial world cup for women's cricket in Women's Twenty20 International (WT20I) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was first played in 2009 in England, and the 2026 tournament marked its tenth edition. The ninth edition, held in 2024 in the United Arab Emirates, was contested by 10 teams, and was won by New Zealand, who defeated South Africa in the final.
Host selection In July 2022, as part of the 2024–2027 ICC women's hosts cycle, the ICC announced that the 2026 Women's T20 World Cup would be played in England. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had previously hosted the inaugural competition in 2009.
Format The 12 qualifying teams were divided into two groups of six teams each. In the group stage, each team played every other team in its group once in a round-robin format. The top two teams from each group advanced to the knockout stage, which consisted of two semi-finals, with the winners facing off in the final.
Schedule In the 2025–2029 ICC Women's Future Tours Programme, the tournament was scheduled to be held in June–July 2026. The ICC announced the tournament schedule on 24 February 2026, with the tournament scheduled to take place from 12 June to 5 July 2026. The teams will play 33 matches across seven venues in England. On 10 July 2025, the ICC announced that warm-up matches would be played at two venues in England and one in Wales. Full list of warm-up fixtures were revealed on 13 May 2026.
Prize money The ICC allocated a pool of $8.76 million in prize money for the tournament, a 10% increase from 2024. The winners would be given at least $2.34 million, with each team receiving an additional $31,154 for each match they won, excluding the semi-finals and final. Unlike the previous editions, instead of positional prizes for teams that failed to advance to the knockout stage, a minimum participation fee is given to all the teams.
+ Prize money allocation for the tournament Place Teams Amount per side Total Champions $2.34 million $2.34 million Runners-up $1.17 million $1.17 million Semi-finalists $675,000 $1.35 million Participation fee $247,500 $2.97 million Match winners $31,154 $934,620 Total $8.76 million
Marketing On 27 May 2026, the ICC announced that the opening ceremony for the tournament would be held on 12 June ahead of the opening match at Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham. The ceremony featured Emma Kingston and Zizi Strallen who portrayed Elphaba and Glinda along with the full cast from the British production of the musical Wicked performing in a lively erected set marking the 20th anniversary of the musical's British iteration. A promotional event "Captains' Carnival", featuring all the team captains was held on 7 June at the Waterloo Bridge in London. On 2 July, the ICC announced that a closing ceremony would be held on 5 July ahead of the final match at Lord's in London with performances from Rita Ora and Clean Bandit.
Qualification
The host team England, along with the top five teams from the 2024 tournament: Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies; directly qualified for the 2026 tournament. The remaining two direct qualification places were allocated to the next best-ranked teams in the ICC Women's T20I Team Rankings as on 20 October 2024, that had not finished in the top six: Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The four remaining places were filled through the global qualifier in February 2026: Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland. Netherlands qualified for the women's T20 World Cup for the first time.
+ Teams qualified for the tournament Method of qualification No. of teams Teams WT20I ranking Host 1 2 2024 Women's T20 World Cup(Top 5 teams from the previous tournament, excluding hosts) 5 1 3 4 5 7 ICC Women's T20I Team Rankings 2 8 6 2026 Women's T20 World Cup Global Qualifier 4 10 9 14 11 Total 12
Venues In May 2025, the ECB confirmed the seven venues for the World Cup: Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham, County Ground in Bristol, Headingley Cricket Ground in Leeds, Lord's and The Oval in London, Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester and Rose Bowl in Southampton.
Venues in England Birmingham Bristol Leeds London Edgbaston Cricket Ground County Ground Headingley Cricket Ground Lord's Capacity: 25,000 Capacity: 17,500 Capacity: 18,350 Capacity: 31,100 Matches: 4 Matches: 6 Matches: 5 Matches: 4 (Final) London Manchester Southampton The Oval Old Trafford Cricket Ground Rose Bowl Capacity: 27,500 Capacity: 26,000 Capacity: 25,000 Matches: 3 (Semi-finals) Matches: 5 Matches: 6
Squads
Each team was allowed a maximum squad size of 15 players and was required to submit the provisional squad to the ICC by 1 May 2026. The teams were allowed to make changes to the squads until 1 June 2026. Any changes after this required permission from the ICC's event technical committee.
Match officials On 28 May 2026, the ICC released the list of match referees and umpires for the tournament. On 21 June 2026, Lauren Agenbag was ruled out of the tournament due to illness and was replaced by Saleema Imtiaz.
Match referees
Umpires
Warm-up matches A total of 12 warm-up matches were played from 6 to 10 June, involving all 12 teams participating in the World Cup across two venues in England: County Cricket Ground in Derby and Haslegrave Ground in Loughborough and one venue in Wales at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff.
Group stage The ICC announced the groups and fixtures on 24 February 2026, with the group stage played from 12 to 28 June. The 12 teams were divided into two groups of six, with each team facing the other teams in the group once. The group stage featured a total of 30 matches. The opening match was played between England and Sri Lanka at Edgbaston on 12 June.
Group A Group B
Group A
Group B
Knockout stage
The knockout stage consisted of two semi-finals played on 30 June and 2 July, and the final on 5 July. The semi-finals were played at The Oval with the final at Lord's. The group A winner and group B runner-up played in the first semi-final and group B winner and Group A runner-up in the second. If India had qualified, they would have played in the first semi-final.
Both semi-finals and the final had a reserve day available on 1, 3, and 6 July, respectively. If a reserve day came into play, the match would not have been restarted but instead resumed from the previous day's play, if there was any; with the play commencing at 14:30 (UTC+01). In the event of no minimum play (at least 10 overs per side) on the scheduled day and the reserve day, in the semi-finals, the team that finished higher in the group stage would have progressed to the final, and in the final, the teams would have been declared as joint-winners.
Bracket
Sources:
Semi-finals
Final
Australia won the toss and elected to field first. English captain Nat Sciver-Brunt was the only batter from her side to score 50+ with 58 runs not out; Freya Kemp scored 44 runs not out and Alice Capsey scored 23 runs while three other batters including both openers were dismissed for single-digit scores as England scored 150 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. Chasing the target, Australian opener Georgia Voll was dismissed for a single-digit score; Beth Mooney and Phoebe Litchfield put together a 100-run partnership scoring 64 runs and 48 runs respectively before being dismissed; Ellyse Perry and Ashleigh Gardner scored 13 runs in 7 balls to take the team to 153 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 17.1 overs to win the match by 7 wickets.
This was Australia's seventh T20 World Cup victory after 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020 and 2023; and the fourteenth overall world cup victory having won the Women's Cricket World Cup seven times as well in 1978, 1982, 1988, 1997, 2005, 2013, and 2022. Mooney received the player of the match award for the final as well as the player of the tournament award; becoming the first cricketer to win both awards in a T20 World Cup twice. Perry became the first cricketer across both genders to win 9 world cups across both formats. The match was attended by 28,000 spectators.
Statistics
Danni Wyatt-Hodge of England scored the most runs in the 2026 tournament (302 runs from 7 innings). She also became the first player to score over 300 runs in a single edition of the T20 World Cup, while scoring the most runs in a single T20 World Cup. A total of three centuries were scored in the 2026 tournament surpassing the previous high of two in a single edition of T20 World Cup (2020). The 2026 tournament also had twelve 100-run partnerships surpassing the previous high of six in a single edition of T20 World Cup (2023). Shree Charani of India took the most wickets in the 2026 tournament (14 wickets from 5 innings). Shabnim Ismail of South Africa became the first player to take 50+ overall wickets in the T20 World Cup.
+ Most runs Runs Player Team 302 Danni Wyatt-Hodge 238 Beth Mooney 227 Nat Sciver-Brunt 225 Tazmin Brits 208 Darcey Carter + Most wickets Wickets Player Team 14 Shree Charani 11 Sophie Molineux Fatima Sana 10 Sophie Ecclestone Hayley Matthews Charlie Dean
Team of the tournament On 6 July, the ICC announced its team of the tournament with Beth Mooney being named as player of the tournament and Sophie Molineux as the captain of the team.
+ Team of the tournament Player Team Role Danni Wyatt-Hodge Batter Beth Mooney Batter / Wicket-keeper Nat Sciver-Brunt All-rounder Ellyse Perry Orla Prendergast Nilakshi de Silva Batter Marizanne Kapp All-rounder Ashleigh Gardner Fatima Sana Sophie Molineux Bowler / Captain Shree Charani Bowler Darcey Carter 12th player
Broadcasting The global broadcasters for the tournament were confirmed by the ICC on 6 June 2026. The matches were broadcast worldwide in 14 languages. The matches were also broadcast through ICC.tv and the ICC's official YouTube channel. JioHotstar provided a vertical live feed along with multi-camera features.