St John's (Antigua), Aug 20 (IANS): The West Indies Women will start the first ever International Cricket Council (ICC) Women's Future Tours Programme (FTP) for the period 2022-2025 with an eight-match home series against New Zealand Women in Antigua next month, followed by England Women in December of 2022.
The West Indies Women will play 66 international matches home and away across the three-year period, besides there will be a major ICC Women's World Cup tournament each year.
West Indies start the 2023 year with a tri-series in South Africa featuring India as the teams build up to the ICC Women's T20 World Cup, South Africa 2023. The other major ICC tournaments to follow during the FTP are the Women's T20 World Cup Bangladesh in September to October 2024 and the Women's Cricket World Cup India in September to October 2025.
All of the One-Day International series from 2022 to 2025 will form part of the ICC Women's Championship (IWC) which will feature 10 teams with the inclusion of Bangladesh and Ireland as the profile of women's cricket grows around the world.
Each team will play eight series, four at home and four away with the top five teams in the IWC table qualifying automatically for the 2025 ICC Women's World Cup.
In addition to the aforementioned England and New Zealand tours, West Indies will play Bangladesh and Ireland in home ODI series for the first time ever. West Indies four away series will be against India, Australia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
"The first-ever FTP put out by the ICC reflects the increased prominence of Women's Cricket and will be an incentive for continued investment by Cricket West Indies (CWI) in the Women's game. CWI has greatly increased investment into the Women's game in the last few years and the aim across this upcoming FTP cycle is to increase the levels of consistency from our Women across formats, both in bilateral series and world events," CWI Director of Cricket Jimmy Adams said.
The dates and venues for each series will be announced in due course by Cricket West Indies (CWI) following consultation with ICC member nations.