Birmingham 2022 unveils netball and cricket T20 match schedules

The first matches for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games have been announced with organisers revealing the schedules for the women 's cricket T20 and the netball competition.

The women 's cricket T20 competition will be held at the Edgbaston Stadium from the 29 July, with the bronze and gold medal matches taking place on 7 August.

The first match on the schedule will see Australia take on India in the early session, with Pakistan playing Barbados, who were recently confirmed as the team from the West Indies that will take part in the Commonwealth Games.

Host nation England, will be in action for the first time on 30 July, against the winner of a qualifying tournament which is due to take place at the start of 2022.

They will then play South Africa in the early session on 2 August, followed by a third match against New Zealand in the evening session on Thursday 4 August.

Other highlights on the schedule include India against Pakistan on 31 July and Australia will also take on Pakistan on 3 August.

Seven out of eight qualifiers for the cricket T20 competition were announced back in April with the final team set to be finalised at the end of January 2022.

Last month the first six qualifiers for the netball competition, which will be held at the NEC Arena, were announced, with the final six set to be confirmed early in 2022.

The netball matches will also begin on Friday 29 July, one day after the opening ceremony for the Games, the largest multi-sport event to be held in the UK for a decade and the biggest ever event to be held in the West Midlands region.

Team England, the reigning Commonwealth Champions, and the host team for the tournament, will be first on court in the early session on 29 July, taking on one of the sides that will be announced next year.

The following day they will play Malawi and they will also have games on the 1 August and 2 August, with their final group match set to be a showdown with New Zealand on 4 August.

Other netball matches that have been revealed so far include Jamaica against South Africa in the evening session on 30 July, Australia against South Africa in the morning session on 1 August and New Zealand against Malawi in the evening session of the same day.

Australia against Jamaica will be the match in the morning session on 4 August - the first of three netball sessions to be held on that day.

Matt Kidson, director of sport for Birmingham 2022, said: “Not surprisingly we have already sold thousands of tickets for both the netball and cricket T20 sessions through our ticket ballots, but we know that some fans have been waiting to find out the details of the match schedules before choosing which sessions they want to attend, so we 're expecting these sports to sell quickly, when ticket sales go live.

“If there are netball and cricket fans who haven 't yet set up their ticketing account, then now would be a great time to do so, as tickets will be sold on a first come, first served basis, once the general sale begins. ”

Birmingham 2022 will be the first time that cricket T20 has been included in the Games and it is also the first time that women 's cricket has been on the sports programme at any Commonwealth Games, with men 's 50 overs cricket included in the 1998 edition which was held in Kuala Lumpur.

The final six netball teams that will compete at Birmingham 2022 and the final qualifier for the women 's cricket T20 tournament will be confirmed at the end of January 2022.

To find out more about Birmingham 2022, create your ticket account or see the full competition schedule for all 286 sessions of sport, click here.