Betty Timmer hopeful about the future of women’s cricket
Betty Timmer, Chairperson of the ICC Women's committee is quite excited about the forthcoming ICC Women's Cricket Challenge and is looking forward to a top-class competition from the participating teams during the tournament. Betty also tipped the West Indies
women side, as the favourites for the challenge.
The tournament is scheduled in Potchefstroom, South Africa from 6-16 October, 2010 and will bring in Women cricket teams ranked between 5th and 6th in the world. The ICC Women's Cricket Challenge is an attempt to bridge the gulf between
top four and remaining six international teams. The participating sides will face each other in a round-robin format in a series of ODIs and T20 matches.
Timmer was hopeful that the tournament would offer some exciting and competitive matches. Betty, at the same time is hoping to see top-class fielding during the tournament as compared to the one shown by the teams in the last ICC Women's World Cup. She opined
that even a small improvement in the fielding would be a great progress at the account of sides.
According to the chairperson of the ICC Women's committee, the upcoming tournament is the first step towards narrowing down the gap between the world-class top four teams and the remaining six. Betty Timmer said that the things have changed, as these ratings
are nearly five years ago, and the gap between the two groups is much narrow then it was at that time.
The present chairperson stated that the ICC Women’s committee wants to build a competitive set up, where the number 10 team would have the potential to beat the leading side. But the chairperson at the same time made it clear that it would take some time
to build such kind of system and the associates should not expect the committee to change the set up overnight.
Timmer revealed that it took number of brainstorming sessions in the women’s committee to plan out the ICC Women's Cricket Challenge and a successful tournament would provide a great platform for women's cricket to start its journey towards development.
She told the media persons that after a long discussion the women’s committee has reached the conclusion that playing more international cricket is only way to bridge the gap between the top four teams and the bottom six.
Betty stated that the committee is considering the option of making the ICC Women’s Cricket Challenge a regular event for the teams to prepare for. She further added that the tournament will help the teams assess their standings at the international arena.
The tournament will affect the Reliance Mobile ICC Team ODI rankings as well, so the competing sides would really have something to play for.
The chairperson of women’s committee also lauded the International Cricket Council for playing its role in promoting women’s cricket, since the merger of women's game with the men's cricket.
Past few years have seen a huge growth in women's cricket. The sport is spreading progressively in various regions. In countries like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 and England, cricket is spreading more and more with the involvement of clubs and juniors. The idea of having
a mixed ICC Women’s World T20 Championship played a key role in promotion and development of women’s cricket.
Betty Timmer was optimistic about the future of women’s game and revealed that more exchange programmes for the bottom six countries with the top four are in progress. She said that the exchange programmes would help the bottom teams to learn from the top
four sides.
Timmer tipped the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 to take the ICC Women’s Cricket Challenge a real challenge for them, rather than just making a formal appearance.
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