Sri Lanka has lost the hosting rights to the inaugural ICC Women’s Champions Trophy, with the International Cricket Council moving the tournament to another country over the continuing dispute about government involvement in the running of Sri Lanka Cricket.
Prakash Schaffter, secretary of the government-appointed committee now administering SLC, confirmed that the ICC had formally notified the committee that the event would be played elsewhere, Daily Mirror reported. Hiru News carried the same confirmation, adding that the replacement venue has not been settled and that a new host is expected to be named at the next ICC Board meeting.
The six-team Twenty20 International tournament was scheduled for February 14 to 28, 2027, with Australia, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the host nation expected to make up the field. LankaNewz reported the ICC Board’s decision to shift the tournament from a June–July window into that February slot on June 1 — at which point Sri Lanka was still the host.
Sri Lanka’s own place in the field is now in question
The most consequential detail appears only in Hiru’s account. The inaugural edition is expected to be contested by the host nation plus the five highest-ranked teams. Hiru reports that Sri Lanka currently sits sixth, which means that losing the hosting slot could also cost the team automatic entry — unless the replacement host is itself ranked outside the top six.
That is a separate measure from the individual rankings, where captain Chamari Athapaththu reached a career-best sixth place among T20I batters in early August.
Hiru also reports that the ICC has barred SLC representatives from attending its board meetings since the committee took over, and that the lost tournament is projected to cost SLC and the country revenue from visiting teams, officials, broadcasters, spectators and tourism. Daily Mirror carried none of this.
How the board came under government control
The tournament was awarded under the previous SLC administration headed by Shammi Silva. Silva and the entire Executive Committee resigned in late April, after which Sports Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage placed the board under his ministry and appointed a nine-member committee chaired by former MP Eran Wickramaratne. Schaffter was named to that committee.
The ICC has held throughout that member boards must be free of government control, and pressed for a return to an elected administration. An ICC delegation including a senior BCCI official visited Colombo in May, and the governance question was still on the ICC Board’s agenda at its June meeting.
Sri Lanka lost hosting rights once before on the same grounds: the 2024 Under-19 World Cup was moved to South Africa after the ICC suspended SLC in 2023 over government interference.
What has not been established
The ICC has issued no public statement confirming the decision or naming a replacement host. Hiru attributed the report to a weekend newspaper and put a question mark on its own headline; Daily Mirror stated it as fact. Neither outlet gave a figure for the projected revenue loss.
The two outlets also name the committee differently — Daily Mirror calls it the Cricket Transition Committee, while Hiru, the Sports Ministry and SLC’s own announcements have consistently called it the Cricket Transformation Committee.
