England will be out to end a 15-year drought at the T20 World Cup but defending champions Australia once again remain the team to beat.
Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the ninth staging of the event, which gets under way with a clash between nominal hosts Bangladesh and Scotland on Thursday.
Who are the hosts?
The ICC Women’s #T20WorldCup 2024 has been moved from Bangladesh and will now be held in the United Arab Emirates.https://t.co/Pi3mUgvG7g
— ICC (@ICC) August 21, 2024
Bangladesh were originally slated to stage the tournament for a second time, having first done so in 2014.
But recent political unrest in the country led to the International Cricket Council relocating its event to the United Arab Emirates, with the Bangladesh Cricket Board keeping hosting rights.
What is the format?
Dubai International Cricket Stadium will stage 12 of the 23 matches, including the final (Image: Gareth Copley/PA)
There is little margin for error in this 10-team tournament comprising just 23 matches in 18 days this month – 12 games, including the final on October 20, will be held in Dubai, with the other 11 in Sharjah.
There are two groups of five, where teams play each other once and the top two advance to the semi-finals.
Can England go all the way?
Sophie Ecclestone is the top-ranked bowler in both ODIs and T20s (Image: Nigel French/PA)
Semi-finalists in South Africa last year, England are on a roll having won all eight T20s this summer, while Nat Sciver-Brunt and Sophie Ecclestone will spearhead their bid for a first title since 2009.
It is difficult to look past six-time champions Australia, who are targeting a fourth straight crown, but a silver lining for England is they won the T20 portion of last year’s Ashes series 2-1.
What is expected of Scotland?
Kathryn Bryce, right, will captain Scotland (Image: Ben Whitley/PA)
Having sealed a place at a World Cup first time in their history, Scotland will attempt to upset the odds and win one of their Group B matches against Afghanistan, Bangladesh, England and South Africa.
Kathryn Bryce, the player of the tournament in the Charlotte Edwards Cup this year, and sister Sarah will be captain and vice-captain, while they will have several all-rounders to choose from.
Who are the ones to watch?
Keep an eye on Hayley Matthews (Image: Zac Goodwin/PA)
Ashleigh Gardner (Australia) Nat Sciver-Brunt (England), Jemimah Rodrigues (India), Abtaha Maqsood (Scotland), Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka), Hayley Matthews (West Indies).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here