The Indian women’s cricket team will play in the Women’s World Cup qualifiers after the ICC ruled that they had forfeited their three ODI matches against Pakistan .
The three-match ODI series was supposed to be held between August to October, but was never scheduled. After considering written submissions from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the ICC technical committee decided to award all six points from the series to Pakistan.
“Following consideration of written submissions from both the PCB and the BCCI, the ICC Technical Committee has ruled that the India Women’s team is deemed to have forfeited each of the three matches it was due to play against Pakistan in Round 6 of the ICC Women’s Championship, and that the associated points should be awarded to Pakistan,” the ICC said in a statement.
India, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka join Bangladesh, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Papua New Guinea & Thailand in the WWC Qualifier
— Women's Cricket Blog (@WomensCricBlog) November 23, 2016
The forfeit seems to be a result of the political tensions between the two countries recently, with BCCI President Anurag Thakur even requesting the ICC to stop grouping India and Pakistan together in multi-nation tournaments.
The consequence of this is that India will end the ICC Women’s Championship with 19 points, three short of West Indies who are fourth on 22 points. The top four teams have qualified directly for the ICC Women’s World Cup to be held in England in June 2017.
India, along with nine other teams, will participate in a qualification tournament hosted by Sri Lanka in February. The top four teams from the qualifiers will join Australia, England, New Zealand and West Indies in the main tournament.
India should be high on confidence going into the qualifiers, having defeated West Indies 3-0 in an ODI series earlier this month.
