The International Cricket Council (ICC) has revealed that the Women’s T20 World Cup held in Australia earlier this year was the most watched women’s event in the history of cricket. Defending champions Australia had lifted the cup after defeating India in the final at the MCC.
The ICC said that it is, in fact, the second most successful ICC event ever after the 2019 Men’s World Cup.
“The event had already clocked up 1.1 billion video views via ICC digital channels, which is more than 20 times the video views delivered in the previous edition played in the West Indies in 2018 and 10 times the previous most successful women’s cricket event, which was the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2017. These figures make it the second most successful ICC event ever after the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 and that trend continued via broadcast with the final achieving record viewership worldwide,” the ICC said in a media release.
The ICC further said that India making it to the final for the first time in seven competitions “boosted audience interest”. The final recorded an average audience of 1.2m viewers, making it the most watched women’s cricket match in Australian broadcast history, the ICC release said.
“India’s success in making it to the final boosted audience interest, with total viewership for the knockout stages recorded at 423% higher than 2018. India live viewing hours were 86.15m which is 152% higher than the 2018 tournament, driven by India’s success and the broadcast of select India matches by Star Sports, in five languages (English, Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and Kannada) in India.”
The tournament, however, ended up breaking the hearts of Indians after the hosts, who won the title for the fifth time, managed to dismiss the visitors for 99 after setting a target of 185.
