Pakistan Wins Hosting Rights for 2028 Women's T20 World Cup
By Sayed Abdullah | June 2, 2026
The ICC board met in Ahmedabad on Monday and handed Pakistan something it has been chasing for years — a major global tournament on home soil. The Women's T20 World Cup will come to Pakistan in 2028, a decision that signals both the country's growing rehabilitation as a cricket destination and the ICC's willingness to look past the security narratives that have kept tournaments away. For the PCB, this is more than a hosting gig. It is validation. The kind that comes from years of proving that international cricket can return — and stay.
Under the existing agreement between Pakistan and India, any matches involving the Indian team will take place at a neutral venue. That arrangement, born of the political deadlock between the two neighbours, is now standard practice and raised no objections in the boardroom. The rest of the tournament — the group stages, the semifinals, the final — will be played in Pakistan, in front of Pakistani crowds, on Pakistani pitches. For a generation of young women cricketers in this country, that is not just a tournament. It is a stage they never thought they would get.
The Full Story
The Women's T20 World Cup 2028 was the headline announcement, but the ICC board meeting in Ahmedabad produced a flurry of other decisions that will reshape the game over the next few years. The board approved a trial allowing the use of the pink ball in Test matches when both participating teams agree — a move aimed squarely at reducing the time lost to bad light, which has plagued Test cricket in certain parts of the world. The innings break in T20Is has been extended to 15 minutes, a small but practical adjustment that gives broadcasters a bit more room and players a bit more breath.
The ICC Women's Champions Trophy 2027 has been moved to February 14 to 28, 2027, shifting away from the previously planned June-July window. That is a significant rescheduling, likely influenced by weather and calendar congestion. The Emerging Nations Trophy 2026 will feature 10 teams, split equally between Full Members and Associate Members — a format designed to give developing cricket nations meaningful competition against established ones. And in a move that could dramatically reshape qualification for the men's shortest format, the ICC approved a new 16-team global qualifying tournament for the Men's T20 World Cup. That opens the door wider for teams that have historically struggled to reach the main event.
On governance, the ICC suspended the membership of the Canada Cricket Board over what it described as serious breaches. Canada's national team will still compete in ICC events, but the board itself has been sidelined — a reminder that the ICC's patience with administrative dysfunction is not infinite. A two-member delegation will also visit Bangladesh to review several matters, including the electoral process of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, following a similar visit the delegation completed in Sri Lanka. The ICC is sending a quiet but consistent message: governance matters, and boards that cannot manage their own affairs will be scrutinised.
The board also raised what is becoming an increasingly urgent concern — the rapid global expansion of franchise cricket. A committee will be formed to explore ways of balancing the international calendar with franchise-based leagues while protecting the existing structure of the game. That is diplomatic language for a very real problem. The T20 leagues are multiplying, the money is growing, and players are increasingly choosing club over country. The ICC knows this. Whether the committee can produce anything beyond a report is the question nobody in that boardroom could answer with confidence.
Why This Moment Matters
Pakistan hosting a World Cup — any World Cup — is never just about cricket. It is about perception, security, and the long shadow cast by the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team. That day changed everything. Tours stopped. Tournaments were relocated. Pakistan became a pariah in its own sport, forced to play home matches in the UAE, watching other countries host the events that once seemed destined for Lahore and Karachi. The return of international cricket has been slow, deliberate, and hard-won. Zimbabwe came first. Then the West Indies. Then England. Each tour was a brick in the wall, proof that cricket in Pakistan could be safe, could be vibrant, could be everything it used to be.
A Women's T20 World Cup in 2028 is the biggest brick yet. It tells the world that Pakistan is not just a place where teams can tour — it is a place where tournaments can be hosted, where global audiences can tune in to see packed stadiums in a country that has spent years being told it was too dangerous. For the PCB, this is a return on the investment it has made in security protocols, in stadium upgrades, in the relentless lobbying required to convince the ICC that Pakistan is ready. The board's leadership — often criticised, often embattled — can point to this moment as a tangible achievement.
And then there is the women's game itself. Pakistan's women's team has not had the same resources, the same attention, or the same opportunities as the men's side. That is slowly changing. A home World Cup will accelerate that change. Young girls who watch the tournament in the stands or on their phones will see a path that was not visible to them before. That is not sentimentality. That is how sports grow — by being visible, by being accessible, by being something a child can imagine herself being part of.
The Pakistani Connection
I remember the first time I went to a women's cricket match in Karachi, yaar. It was a small affair — a domestic fixture, barely a few hundred people in the stands, most of them family members. The players were talented, but the infrastructure around them was thin. The idea that Karachi might one day host a Women's T20 World Cup match, under lights, with a global broadcast, felt distant. Not impossible — just distant. Monday's announcement makes it real.
For Pakistani fans, the economics of watching a home World Cup are appealing. A family of four can attend a group-stage match in Lahore or Rawalpindi for perhaps Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 4,000 — far less than the cost of travelling to the UAE or England to see the same event. That accessibility matters. It means the tournament will not just be for the wealthy or the well-connected. It will be for the students, the young professionals, the families who want their daughters to see women playing professional sport at the highest level.
The neutral venue arrangement for India matches is, by now, a familiar compromise. Some will grumble about it. Others will shrug. The reality is that without that arrangement, the tournament might not have come to Pakistan at all. The ICC's decision to award the hosting rights despite that complication suggests that the boardroom calculus has shifted. Pakistan is no longer the impossible option. It is the viable one. That is a quiet but significant change, and it did not happen by accident.
What do you think — can Pakistan deliver a successful Women's T20 World Cup, and which cities should host the matches? I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Sayed Abdullah is the founder and editor of Prime Pakistan. Based in Karachi, he writes about sports and the stories that connect Pakistan to the world. Read more.
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Sources
- ICC — Official announcements from the board meeting in Ahmedabad.
- ESPNcricinfo — Reporting on ICC decisions and tournament hosting rights.
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