The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 will take place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from 3 to 20 October. This will be the ninth edition of ICC’s showpiece event in the women’s Twenty20 International format, in which Australia will be eyeing an unprecedented fourth consecutive title.

The 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup was originally supposed to be hosted in Bangladesh, but ultimately had to be moved out of the south Asian nation due to security concerns following the recent anti-government protests.

Instead, the UAE gets to host the women’s T20 World Cup for the first time, having previously hosted the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup. The Gulf nation is no stranger to being assigned last-minute hosting duties in cricket, an example being the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup had to be moved there due to the COVID crisis in India.

Australia are by far the most successful team in the tournament’s history, winning it six times (2010, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020 and 2023) besides finishing runners-up in the 2016 edition in India.

The Southern Stars had defeated hosts South Africa by 19 runs in a tense final in Cape Town two years ago in what was Meg Lanning’s final ICC event as Australia captain before she took the cricketing world by surprise by announcing her international retirement at the age of 31.

Alyssa Healy has since taken over the reins of the team will be hoping to continue the Aussie dominance in the tournament this year.

England and West Indies are the only other nations to have won the tournament. While England won the inaugural edition in 2009, defeating New Zealand in the final, West Indies stopped the Aussie juggernaut in the 2016 final in Kolkata, the Stafanie Taylor-led side winning by eight wickets at the Eden Gardens.

Since the inaugural edition in 2009, India have reached the semi-finals five times while reaching the final only once. Their best performance in the tournament’s history came in the 2020 edition in Australia, where they won all four matches in the group stage and progressed to the summit clash after their semi-final against England was washed out.

The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side, however, suffered an 85-run battering at the hands of the Aussies in the final to miss out on an ICC trophy for the second time in three years after finishing runners-up in the 2017 ODI World Cup.

The Women in Blue had reached the semi-finals of the 2023 edition before suffering yet another heartbreak at the hands of the Aussies, this time in the form of a narrow five-run defeat.