New Delhi, Nov 4: India will be playing host to England, Australia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the newly-announced women’s 2025-2029 Future Tours Programme, which outlines matches for the fourth edition of the ICC Women’s Championship.

In the scheduled announced by the ICC Monday, India will be playing its away matches in New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and Ireland in the same period. The second women’s FTP will run from May 2025 to April 2029.

This FTP sees an ICC women’s event to be played each year with the inaugural six-team Champions Trophy scheduled for 2027.

The other events during the period are the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup in 2025 (India), Women’s T20 World Cup in 2026 (the United Kingdom) and another edition of Women’s T20 World Cup in 2028 (host yet to be announced).

The number of participating teams in the ICC Women’s Championship will be at 11 this time, Zimbabwe added to the championship for the first time. In all, 132 ODIs will be played in 44 series of three matches each, lending context by way of a qualification pathway to the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup in 2029.

Ahead of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026, England will host India and New Zealand for a tri-series while Ireland will host Pakistan and the West Indies. Sri Lanka and the West Indies are among other Members scheduled to host T20I tri-series, in 2027 and 2028, respectively.

"We are pleased that the new edition of the IWC has expanded and will include Zimbabwe as an eleventh team. It is heartening that Member Boards are keen to play across formats, and also that they have planned tri-series to prepare for ICC events.”

"The effort made by the Members to provide a balanced and contextual calendar will further elevate the women’s game. We thank Member Boards for their commitment and collaboration in finalizing the FTP,” said Wasim Khan, ICC General Manager of Cricket.

There’s more scope for Test matches in this FTP, with Australia, England, India, South Africa and the West Indies all agreeing to play multi-format series that include ODIs and T20Is. Australia will play the maximum such series – two each against England, India and South Africa and one against the West Indies.

There’s a window for 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, to be held in July that year, apart from dedicated annual windows for the WBBL (November), The Hundred (August) and Women’s Premier League (WPL in January-February). From 2026 onwards, WPL will be played in the January-February window.

It also means that India's multi-format visit of Australia, consisting of one Test, three ODIs and three T20Is to now be held after the WPL in February-March 2026. "This is the first women's FTP with the WPL in place from the start. The BCCI's decision for the WPL to move earlier in the calendar year allowed us to look at our preferred times to play international cricket across the period."

"We have for some years now sought free space for our magnificent women's team and players to shine, and also for the team to have a consistent presence at a certain time of the season. The window of immediately following WPL in February-March was identified."

"This also allows us to extend the international cricket season which we see as an advantage – cricket around the country generally runs from the start of October to the end of March and having our biggest international matches spread over that period makes sense," said Peter Roach, CA's head of operations and scheduling, to cricket.com.au.

(IANS)

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