The Indian women’s Cricket team is scheduled to face Australia in the opening match at the 2022 Commonwealth Games on 29 July while the final will be played on 7 August, as announced by the event organisers on Friday.
This is the first time that women’s cricket is making its debut at the Commonwealth Games with the format same as T20.
"The women's cricket T20 competition will be held at the Edgbaston Stadium from the 29 July, with the bronze and gold medal matches taking place on 7 August," said the ECB in a statement.
The first match as per the schedule is between India and Australia following which Pakistan would be playing against Barbados, a team taking part in the competition from the West Indies. The Indian team will also play against Pakistan on 31 July.
Hosts England would be playing their first match on 30 July, following which it is expected to compete against South Africa on 2 August, and then New Zealand on 4 August.
Most of the qualifiers for the tournament were announced earlier in the month of April. The final teams playing is expected to be finalised by the end of January 2022.
ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said: "We have seen tremendous growth of the women's game over the past few years and the Commonwealth Games will undoubtedly be another major moment on that journey.
"Today's announcement of the match schedule gives fans lots to look forward to, not least with the opening game between ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2020 finalists Australia and India and we know that Edgbaston will provide a great stage for the competition."
The programme for netball was also announced on Friday. The match schedules were announced just a few weeks before tickets for Birmingham 2022 are set to go on sale.
Matt Kidson, Director of Sport for Birmingham 2022, said: "Not surprisingly we have already sold thousands of tickets for both the netball and cricket T20 sessions through our ticket ballots...
"...but we know that some fans have been waiting to find out the details of the match schedules before choosing which sessions they want to attend, so we’re expecting these sports to sell quickly, when ticket sales go live."
(With PTI Inputs)
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