The new frontier of women’s cricket: How the game is booming beyond the Commonwealth

Cricket has long been dominated by former and current Commonwealth nations. The top four at the most recent ICC Women’s World Cup — India, South Africa, England and Australia — support the point, but in recent years the sport is rapidly gaining in popularity beyond those borders.

In 2020, Brazil, a developing cricket nation outside the sport’s top tier, put 14 women on full-time contracts, making it the only ICC member at the time with centrally-contracted women but no contracted men — an inversion of the sport’s traditional order.

Since then, Germany's club scene has grown, Thailand have kept climbing, and the USA now has Olympic momentum with the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 on the horizon, where women's cricket will make its Olympic debut.

Read on to learn more about cricket's growth around the world, what’s changed in the structures, and which teams are best placed to break through next.

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The Olympic effect

The rise of women’s cricket beyond its traditional borders is no accident. In recent years, a combination of structural reforms, Olympic-driven deadlines, and targeted investments has drawn new countries into the spotlight.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has expanded opportunities at the top. The women’s T20 World Cup will include 12 teams in 2026 and expand to 16 by 2030, creating more qualifying berths and a clearer competitive ladder for emerging programmes.

Then there's the massive incentive of competing at the Olympic Games.

In October 2023, the IOC approved cricket (T20) for LA2028 — its first Olympic appearance since 1900, and the first time with both women’s and men’s T20 tournaments. For nations like Germany and the United States, that decision changed the funding landscape. Germany’s Deutscher Cricket Bund joined the German Olympic Sports Confederation in 2024, unlocking federal high-performance funding from 2025. Meanwhile, USA Cricket has launched the Women’s Conference T20 Championships, giving players regular regional competition ahead of the home Games.

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Domestic leagues are strengthening these foundations. Germany now runs a national women’s league — the DCB Bundesliga – Frauen — as a season-long competition that culminates in a finals weekend; and the federation counts more than 160 clubs nationwide, a base that didn’t exist a decade ago.

In South-East Asia, the 2023 SEA Games in Phnom Penh staged women’s cricket across four formats. Thailand won gold in T10, T20 and 50-over events, while Indonesia took the six-a-side title.

In fact, Thailand have been ranked as high as No.10 in the ICC Women’s T20I table and, after the 2025 annual update, were closing in on the top 10 again.

At the governance level, the ICC’s ODI-status update for 2025–29 underlines how performance now drives recognition. The list retains Thailand, the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea and Scotland, and adds the United Arab Emirates.

Add those pieces together — more World Cup places, an Olympic deadline, defined domestic calendars — and the effect is compounding: boards can justify spend, athletes play regularly, and new audiences have something to follow. It is one of the reasons why the sport’s centre of gravity is beginning to spread.

Making it to LA28

Women’s cricket at Los Angeles 2028 will be a six-team T20 tournament. That team cap has been confirmed, but the exact pathway to those six spots is being finalised by the ICC.

Even if LA28 brings few surprises about who makes the cut, the sport’s return to the Games is already lifting participation worldwide. We may not see many new faces in Los Angeles, but by the next Olympic cycle — if cricket is on the programme — don’t be surprised to see a broader field and a few upstarts pushing through.

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