Bangladesh to face Australia in tournament opener

Bangladesh have been slotted in Group A with Australia, Sri Lanka and the USA in the inaugural ICC Under-19 Women’s Twenty20 World Cup, set to be held in South Africa in January, 2023.

Bangladesh Under-19 women’s team will play the tournament opener against their Australian counterparts on 14 January.

They will then take on Sri Lanka and USA on 16 and 18 January respectively.

Similar to the men’s Under-19 World Cup, 16 teams will compete in the women’s U-19 T20 World Cup. Of the participants, 11 are ICC full members and the remaining five are associate countries.

Afghanistan is the only ICC full member that won’t take part in the tournament, but ICC didn’t specify the reason behind their exclusion.

The five associate teams set to participate are the USA, Rwanda, Indonesia, Scotland and the UAE.

This will be the maiden appearance in an ICC event for Indonesia and Rwanda.

The 16 teams have been divided into four groups of four. The top three teams of each group will move onto the Super Six round, where the qualifiers from Group A will play against the qualifiers from Group D and the qualifiers from Group B will face off against the qualifiers of Group C.

Both semifinals will take place on 27 January and the final will be played on 29 January.