Confirmed! ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 moved to the UAE from Bangladesh

The venue of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 has been changed from Bangladesh to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). An official statement from ICC on Tuesday, August 20, confirmed the change of venue for the marquee women’s event.

The 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup will be held across two venues in the UAE, Dubai and Sharjah, from October 3 to October 20. In an official statement over the move to change the venue for the event, ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said:

“It is a shame not to be hosting the Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh as we know the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) would have staged a memorable event."

Bangladesh will, however, retain the hosting rights of the T20 World Cup.

“I would like to thank the team at the BCB for exploring all avenues to try and enable the event to be hosted in Bangladesh, but travel advisories from the governments of a number of the participating teams meant that wasn’t feasible," Allardice explained.

“I’d also like to thank the Emirates Cricket Board for stepping in to host on behalf of the BCB and Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe for their generous offers of support, and we look forward to seeing ICC global events in both of those countries in 2026,” he went on to add in the official statement.

There were growing concerns over the possibility of Bangladesh hosting the 2024 T20 Women’s World Cup in the wake of the civil unrest in the nation, which even forced Sheikh Hasina to resign as Prime Minister and flee to India.

The UAE hosted the 2021 Men's T20 World Cup alongside Oman. The Middle East has also hosted several important qualifier tournaments and has also chipped in as India Premier League (IPL) host when needed.

Meanwhile, the ICC report also confirmed that Greg Barclay would step down as ICC Chairperson after his tenure comes to a close in November.

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Alyssa Healy had raised concerns over the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 being held in Bangladesh

The ICC's decision to move the 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup from Bangladesh to the UAE comes just a day after Australia women's team captain Alyssa Healy commented that playing the tournament in the country under the current circumstances would be the wrong thing to do.

"I'd find it hard to fathom playing there [in Bangladesh] at the moment, as a human being, I feel like it might be the wrong thing to do. (That would be) taking resources away from a country that is really struggling. They're needing everyone they can possibly get in there helping people that are dying," Healy was quoted as saying in a Cricbuzz report.

The upcoming tournament to be played in the UAE would be the ninth edition of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup.