Women in Sport - ICC 100% Future Leaders Programme

 

Women from all over the world are getting the opportunity to take up leadership roles in various sports including cricket. The ICC has announced it's mentorship program for women and we got the opportunity to talk to two of the women that have been selected from 300 applicants to take part in the program.

40 women from 29 ICC Member countries have been selected to be mentored as part of the ICC 100% Cricket Future Leaders Programme designed to support emerging female talent in cricket. The programme, which is part of the ICC’s long-term commitment to accelerate the growth of women’s cricket and women in cricket, received an overwhelming response of more than 300 applicants from 45 different countries.

The initial intake will be split into two batches and the programme, which designed to address the low percentage of women in leadership positions in global cricket and build a pipeline of new female leaders in cricket will get underway with batch one beginning this month.

About 100% Cricket Future Leaders Programme
The application is open for all female future leaders of Cricket to apply and will be matched with a mentor to support their development growth.
The role of a mentor is to unlock their mentee’s potential and help them to be at their best. This could include being a confidential sounding-board, providing advice, guidance, and connections to reach their potential.

The philosophy of the 100% Cricket - Future Leaders Programme is to be participant lead, with the ICC acting in support to match the mentees with suitable mentors and provide guidelines and evaluation frameworks for the participants and opportunities to network and interact.

The programme will last for a period of 6 months, and include a kick-off workshop with Belinda Clark, followed by monthly check-ins and a 3-month review with the mentees and mentors agreeing the frequency and method of communication.

SELECTION PROCESS
All mentee applications were reviewed by a selection panel consisting of the ICC General Manager – Marketing and Communications – Claire Furlong, Mentor Guide and former Australia Captain Belinda Clark AO, ICC General Manager Development, Will Glenwright, and Competition Manager – Cricket, Birmingham 2022 – Commonwealth Games Holly Colvin.

 

ICC announces expansion of global events

 The ICC Board today confirmed the schedule of ICC events from 2024- 2031 with both the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup and ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to be expanded and a Men’s Champions Trophy to be re-introduced.

The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup will become a 14 team, 54 match event in 2027 and 2031, whilst the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will be expanded to a 20 team, 55 match event in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030. An eight team Champions Trophy will be hosted in 2025 and 2029. ICC World Test Championship Finals will be hosted in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031. The ICC Women’s event schedule has already been confirmed with the expansion of both the Cricket World Cup and T20 World Cup forming part of the ICC’s long-term commitment to growing the women’s game. 

The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup format will have two groups of seven, with the top three in each group progressing to a Super Six stage, followed by semi-finals and final. This is the same format that was used in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2003. The format of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will consist of four groups of five, with the top two from each group going through to a Super Eights stage, followed by the knockout stages of semi-finals and a final. The Champions Trophy will follow previous editions with two groups of four, semi-finals and final. 

The ICC Board also approved the process for determining the hosts for all Men’s, Women’s and U19 events in the next cycle. The hosts for the Men’s events will be decided in September following a selection process that will get underway this month. The hosting process for Women’s and U19 events will commence in November and will be an opportunity to engage with a wider range of Members including first-time hosts. 

The ICC Board has requested management focus its planning efforts for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 on the event being staged in the UAE with the possibility of including another venue in the Middle East. A final decision on the host country will be taken later this month. The Board also confirmed that the BCCI will remain the hosts of the event regardless of where the event is played.  

ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said: “Having the ICC event schedule confirmed through to 2031 is a significant step forward for cricket and will form the basis of our growth strategy for the next decade. 

“The revised approach to selecting hosts for our events will give us much more flexibility to grow the game and engage new fans. There is a smaller pool of countries with the infrastructure needed to host our senior Men’s events which narrows the selection process. Additionally, many of our Members expressed interest in hosting Women’s and U19 events which gives us a great opportunity to stage events in established and emerging cricket nations.”