The 2003 IWCC Trophy was an international women's cricket tournament held in the Netherlands between 21 and 26 July 2003. Organised by the International Women's Cricket Council (IWCC), it was the inaugural edition of what is now the

World Cup Qualifier The FIFA World Cup qualification is a competitive match that a national association football team takes in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the (men's) FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments are hel ...

. The tournament featured six teams and was played using a round-robin format. The top two teams, Ireland and the West Indies, qualified for the 2005 World Cup in South Africa. All matches held

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

(ODI) status, with

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

making its debut in that format and Scotland playing only its second ODI tournament. Ireland's

Barbara McDonald Barbara Mary McDonald (born 28 May 1972) is an Irish former cricketer who played as a right-arm pace bowler. She appeared in one Test match and 57 One Day Internationals (ODIs) for Ireland between 1993 and 2005, including appearing at the 1993, ...

was named the player of the tournament, while the leading runscorer and leading wicket taker, respectively, were Pauline te Beest of the Netherlands and Pakistan's 15-year-old off spinner,

Sajjida Shah Sajjida Bibi Shah (born 25 June 1988) is a Pakistani former cricketer who played as an all-rounder, batting right-handed and bowling right-arm off break. She appeared in two Test matches, 60 One Day Internationals and eight Twenty20 International ...

Background and qualification

At all prior editions of the World Cup, participation had been determined by invitation only. The creation of a qualifying tournament, to be known as the IWCC Trophy, was proposed at the 1997 meeting of the IWCC committee in Calcutta, India. It was initially suggested that the inaugural tournament be held in 2002 for the planned 2004 World Cup, but the dates for both the IWCC Trophy and the World Cup were both later shifted forward by one year. Six teams participated in the inaugural IWCC Trophy: * (7th place at 2000 World Cup) * (invitee) * (8th place at 2000 World Cup) * (invitee) * (invitee) * (invitee) Ireland and the Netherlands qualified for the tournament based on their performance at the 2000 World Cup in New Zealand, where they were the bottom two teams. Of the other four teams, Pakistan and the West Indies had participated at the 1997 World Cup in India, while Scotland (one of the IWCC's newest members) had played in only one prior international tournament, the 2001 European Championship. Japan was making its international debut in women's cricket, with the sport having only popularised among women in the preceding decade.Paul Grunill (14 July 2003)
"Japan step into unknown"
– BBC Sport. Retrieved 4 October 2015.

Squads

Venues

Group stage

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Statistics

Most runs

The top five tournament batsmen are included in this table, ordered by runs scored and then by batting average. Source
CricketArchive

Most wickets

The top five tournament bowlers are listed in this table, listed by wickets taken and then by

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

. Source
CricketArchive

References

External links

at ESPNcricinfo {{DEFAULTSORT:IWCC Trophy

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

International women's cricket competitions in the Netherlands 2003 in Dutch sport International cricket competitions in 2003 2005 Women's Cricket World Cup July 2003 sports events in Europe 2003 in women's cricket