Bumper prize money but off-pitch turmoil as Women’s Cricket World Cup returns to India

The last time England’s head coach, Charlotte Edwards, flew to India for a 50-over World Cup, during her playing days in 2013, she packed a suitcase full of ketchup. It was a different world: the teams flew economy, no side had professional contracts and there was no team dietitian to raise an eyebrow at Edwards’s condiment of choice.

The 2025 World Cup, which begins on Tuesday in Guwahati and concludes with the final on 2 November, might as well be taking place on a different planet. The dizzying changes in women’s cricket over the past 12 years are perhaps best summed up by the growth in tournament prize money. In 2013, it totalled $200,000; this time, it amounts to $13.88m. The eagle-eyed will spot this is more than the $10m total prize pot for the most recent 50-over men’s World Cup – a big statement by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as to the value of the women’s game.

Cricket World Cups in India are always a big event. This one, coming in the wake of the 2023 launch of the successful India Women’s Premier League, should be an opportunity to demonstrate just how far we have come since Edwards’s last foray. Note the word “should”. The powers that be appear to be doing their best to squander that opportunity.

In August, the ICC announced a wholesale rejig to the schedule for security reasons, including moving one semi-final and (possibly) the final from Bengaluru to Navi Mumbai. All of Pakistan’s games (including the semi-final and final, should they qualify) are taking place in Sri Lanka because of the deteriorating India-Pakistan political situation.

When did tickets go on sale for this showstopper event? Less than a month ago. Bizarrely, more seems to be being done to promote next year’s T20 World Cup in England and Wales than to shout about the 50-over one starting this week.

In all the chaos for any travelling fans, the players are battling with a five-city round-robin schedule that leaves little time for rest and recovery. Of the eight teams, Pakistan (who have never reached the knockout stages of a World Cup) have a significant advantage, given they will be based in Colombo for the duration.

Australia, the reigning champions, are the next best off, with only three internal flights and 5,194km to contend with in the group stages. At the other end of the spectrum, New Zealand will rack up almost 9,000km of travel as the team crisscross between venues in Mumbai, Guwahati, Indore, Visakhapatnam and Colombo. England have to manage 7,000km: Edwards is going to need a lot of ketchup.

England’s campaign starts on Friday against South Africa in Guwahati. Even allowing for the fact this is the first World Cup for the new coach-captaincy duo of Edwards and Nat Sciver-Brunt, reaching the semi-finals must surely be a minimum expectation.

The latest blow to public confidence in England came when the 33-year-old seamer and popular podcaster Kate Cross has lost her England contract, as the head coach chooses to focus on the next-gen of Em Arlott and Lauren Filer. Whether it was the right call got lost in the outpouring of sympathy towards Cross and showed clearly that this is a team who still need to win back hearts and minds after the Ashes hammering in January and a shaky 2-1 defeat against India in the one-day international series in July.

Pressure will come if England slip up in one of their early fixtures – after South Africa, they play Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. A careless defeat could turn their subsequent fixtures against the big guns of India and Australia into must-wins.

Those two teams were last seen facing-off in a record-aggregate ODI in Delhi when Australia scored 412 and India were within touching distance of chasing it down, finishing on 369. On the same day, England limped to a victory in their unofficial warm-up against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi, reaching 287 only by virtue of being able to field eight batters.

As ever, England’s hopes will rest heavily on Sciver-Brunt. The signs are good: she hit an unbeaten century in Thursday’s warm-up against India and after being unable to bowl for months and also sent down four overs. But Australia are buoyed up by Alyssa Healy’s return from injury, and the world No 1 batter, India’s Smriti Mandhana, is in the form of her career, having just scored back-to‑back hundreds against Australia.

It is hard to predict anything other than an India v Australia final come 2 November. As for the prospect of an India win, to secure a maiden world title on home soil? That really could be a gamechanger.

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