'Once You Create Demand, Optimise It With Supply' – T20 WC Tournament Director On Blueprint To Sustain Women's Cricket Momentum

Once you create demand, optimise it with supply – T20 WC tournament director on blueprint to sustain (Image Source: IANS)

Over Cricket World Cup: Beth Barrett‑Wild, the tournament director of 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, said they have been working on a blueprint to sustain momentum in the women’s game, something which was a key learning for her from the 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup, adding that once demand is created, it has to be optimised with supply.

Nine years ago, the 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup in England, which the hosts won in a sold-out final at Lord’s, led to a transformation in perception about women's cricket. It went from a little-known sport into a highly followed one, apart from it being recognised as a commercially viable property – just like how men’s cricket is.

In an exclusive conversation with IANS ahead of the T20 World Cup starting on Friday, Beth said the key lesson from 2017 ODI World Cup was the absence of a follow-on pathway for newly converted fans to watch more women’s cricket and explained the plan about keeping fans hooked to ensure that the momentum from this summer's mega does not dissipate the moment the final ends on July 5 at Lord’s.

"So lots and lots of lessons (were there) from 2017. I was very fortunate personally to get to work on the 2017 Women's 50 Over Cricket World Cup that we hosted here as a strategic planning manager. That was very much kind of behind the scenes and trying to make sure that we maximise that moment as best as possible, which we did see through to the final.

“So that sold out England v India final at Lord's and those incredible scenes that day and it was definitely here in England, probably the first moment where we'd seen a traditionally male dominated sport, such as cricket, really break through at scale on a national level and really capture the imagination of the nation.

“Having that final sold out really just demonstrated that actually if you build an opportunity for the women's game to really shine and you market it properly and have a really good ticketing strategy behind it, there is an audience there that wants to watch it. So that was really, really important that we had that big final moment," she said.

However, Beth acknowledged that the 2017 ODI World Cup triumph was followed by a significant gap in matches for England. "But in terms of learnings, one of the things in terms of really sort of capturing that momentum, England women didn't actually play another fixture that summer.

“So we played in that final, we had that big ground swell of love for the England women's team and all of that attention. Then we didn't have anywhere to signpost those fans into going to watch and sort of continue their following of the England women's team," she said.

This time, the ECB has engineered a near-seamless calendar. The T20 World Cup final at Lord's on July 5 will be followed just five days later by the first-ever women's Test match at the iconic ground - England versus India beginning on July 10 and is followed the Vitality Blast women's T20 finals day at the Kia Oval on July 17, before The Hundred begins.

"So that's certainly something that we've looked at really carefully this summer. Immediately after the final at Lord's on the 5th of July, we have got the iconic first historic ever women's test match at Lord's against India. That starts on the 10th of July, just five days later and it's a different format, but there is still a notion there that it will be big scale, it will be iconic in status and all of those things.

“So straight away, fans will have the opportunity to watch England women in action or India women in action in that fixture. Then we go from there, we've got our domestic women's T20 competition finals day, which is the Vitality Blast and that's on the 17th of July at the Kia Oval, which is one of our venues for semifinals again within the T20 World Cup.

“So that's no coincidence, as that's really carefully identified as an opportunity again to signpost people in. Then after that, we've got The Hundred and that's probably one of the big shifts that we've seen since 2017 and the impact that The Hundred can have in terms of that blockbuster high profile, high quality world-class domestic franchise competition, where again, immediately, fans can watch the women's T20 World Cup and have a brilliant experience there and then go and watch the heroes again and that's one of the things that I'm really excited about," she elaborated.

Beth added that the tournament’s quality itself would make the transition for fans to see The Hundred in a more compelling manner, especially with many World Cup‑bound players expected to feature in the competition. "The quality of this Women's T20 World Cup is gonna be stronger, better and deeper than we've ever seen. It really is quite an open playing field actually across those 12 nations, which is really exciting.

“I think whoever is in the final on the 5th of July, there's a very high probability that some of those players featuring in that final, whether it's from England, South Africa, India, Australia and West Indies, will then be going on to play in The Hundred. So those players, that familiarity, connection, and engagement will continue forward into that competition.

“So that's probably one of the really big learnings, I guess, coming out of 2017, is making sure that once you've created that demand, you're really optimising it with supply afterwards and you've got those signpost pieces. Then actually, if you project a little bit further for us, so 2027, we're very fortunate that, again, we've got the women's Ashes.

“When we talk about maintaining that momentum, it's not just directly in 26 where we'll keep up that cadence. Actually continuing that into next summer with a big high-profile summer for us as the ECB with that series against Australia is really, really important, again, to really build on that fan following for the women's game. So again, it's no coincidence.

Beth, who has had a very close view of the evolution of the women’s game in England, including the equal pay and revamp of women’s domestic cricket structure in the country, further spoke about how the ECB planned on 2026 and 2027 to be big years of women’s cricket in the country.

“When we got the opportunity to identify within the Future Tours programme where the big global events were gonna be of the ICC, I think that was probably the best part of maybe two or three years ago, actually, that we got that list.

“Everybody was like, it's the 2026 Women's T20 World Cup that we want to host because it just fits perfectly with where we're gonna be in terms of immediately ahead of the Ashes in 2027.

“But then also actually, crucially, having had five years of building the audience for women's cricket through The Hundred and England women's team. So look, we're coming into this summer and this tournament in a really, really strong space, and that's actually just in cricket," she said.

She also pointed to the broader wave of women's sport success in England as a tailwind - from the Lionesses winning the UEFA Women's Euros at Wembley in 2022 to the Red Roses claiming the Women's Rugby World Cup on home soil at Twickenham in 2025.

"Like, we're also coming off the back of so much women’s sport and you must be aware that we've recently hosted the UEFA Women's Euros in 2022 in the football and the amazing scenes of the Lionesses winning that tournament at Wembley.

“Then more recently in 2025 with the Women's Rugby World Cup and the Red Roses winning that tournament on home soil. So again, just in terms of the general momentum behind women's sports, this Women's T20 World Cup really couldn't have come at a better time," she said.

Beth explained that the pathway now extended from grassroots all the way to the elite professional level - a depth of structure that simply did not exist in 2017. "So since then, going into 2017, I think we had 15 professional female cricketers, which were just the England women's team.

“We now have over 150 female professional cricketers in this country because we've got a fully-fledged professional women's domestic structure with nine fully professional women's domestic teams underpinned by nine semi-professional teams and then a sort of further base underneath that.

“So we've got the depth of our infrastructure now for women's cricket in the elite pathway is very, very strong. Again, when you go from a playing perspective, if we have a generation of young girls falling in love with women's cricket through this tournament and being inspired by what they see, we've got an infrastructure now that is ready with open arms to capture them," she said.

The tournament also has grassroots ambitions, with a target of getting 500,000 women and girls to pick up a bat and ball this summer through club ‘Spirit parties,’ open days and taster sessions across England and Wales. "That will start with what we're doing in the recreational game and through the tournament, we're gonna have a series of activities and initiatives.

“So we're calling them Spirit parties because the whole campaign for the tournament is to catch the spirit because that's the infectious nature of a Women's World Cup, but combined with a special kind of soul of women's cricket and how it's different and unique and special from the men's game.

“So recreational clubs will be hosting Spirit parties and we've given them various resources, kind of a series of things like bunting and dressing. Posters and all sorts of things, balloons that they can really decorate their clubhouses with and encourage their communities to come down and watch the Women's T20 World Cup if they can't come along to watch in the venue.

“So we're calling them Spirit parties because the whole campaign for the tournament is to catch the spirit because that's the infectious nature of a Women's World Cup, but combined with a special kind of soul of women's cricket and how it's different and unique and special from the men's game.

“Then we've got that pathway - so that in the elite pathway, our talented players can really progress through that and aspire to be professional cricketers. Again, that probably wasn't quite the case in 2017, we weren't quite there. But 2017 was very much the spark that ignited, I guess, the platform to put everything in place that means that we're going into 2026 with a really, really, really strong proposition to hopefully create an even stronger foundation for women's cricket," she concluded.

Article Source: IANS