CHENNAI: India will host Australia and England and play multiple Tests away from home as the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the women's cricket Future Tours Programme (FTP) for the 2025-29 cycle. Along with that, India will host Bangladesh and the newest member of the ICC Women's Championship, Zimbabwe.
This announcement has also made sure that the three franchise leagues, Women's Premier League (January-February), The Hundred in (August) in England and Australia's Women's Big Bash League (November), have a dedicated window in the cycle.
In the same cycle, India will tour New Zealand, West Indies, Ireland and South Africa in this phase as each member nations are scheduled to play four series at home and abroad. As was the case with the previous FTP, India will not play any bilateral series against Pakistan and will face the neighbours only in ICC tournaments. In the Women's Championship, each team will compete against eight other teams, maintaining the format of four home and four away series, as in the current edition.
One of the positive outcomes of this FTP is the increased amount of Test cricket for women compared to the previous cycle. Although there is only one Test match scheduled in the 2025 calendar year between Australia and England, from 2026, there are four Tests each year. With the West Indies getting on the Test cricket bandwagon after a hiatus of 20 years and facing Australia, England and South Africa for one Test each, there would be more Test cricket than before.
The upcoming FTP cycle will also feature an ICC Women's tournament every year, starting with the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup in 2025 in India, the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in 2026 in England, the inaugural ICC Women's Champions Trophy in 2027 and the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in 2028. The year 2028 will also see cricket introduced at the Olympics in Los Angeles. In preparation for ICC events, countries have scheduled tri-series tournaments between themselves. For example, ahead of the T20 World Cup in 2026, England will host India and New Zealand in a three-team T20I series.
In all, 132 ODIs will be played in 44 series of three matches each, lending context by way of a qualification pathway to the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup in 2029 and giving members the chance to club matches of other formats with those tours.