Women's T20, Basketball 3x3 make their debut at CWG 2022

Avinash Kumar

New Delhi, July 23 (IANS) Women's Cricket, Basketball 3x3, Wheelchair Basketball 3x3 and Para Table Tennis are among the new sports, which have been added to the 2022 edition of Commonwealth Games (CWG) and will making their debut at the highly anticipated event, scheduled to take place in Birmingham between July 28 and August 8.

A total of 72 nations are participating in the upcoming CWG. This will be the third time England will be hosting the prestigious event following the London 1934 and Manchester 2002 Games.

In every edition of CWG, organizers and the committee decide about removing and adding a few sports. This year the Birmingham 2022 organisers decided to drop archery and shooting and have instead included a few new games.

IANS takes a look at the newly included events in Commonwealth Games 2022.

Basketball 3x3:

Making its CWG debut, this format of the sport is up for some fast paced action and the event will be held at the Smithfield site. A 5x5 version of the game was earlier included twice at the Games, in Melbourne 2006 and Gold Coast 2018.

This time, there will be a total of eight Commonwealth nations, who will be taking part in this 3x3 event- the host, top nation in the FIBA 3x3 Federation Rankings from each of the six Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) regions and the highest-ranked nation not already qualified.

Only half a court and one hoop will be used for both teams with just 12 seconds on the shot clock in this event instead of the 24 in full court basketball. As the name suggests, every team should have three players and one substitute, while shots scored from inside the arc shaped zone are one point each and those taken from behind the arc put two points on the board.

The first team to touch 21 points wins. If no team reaches the score after ten minutes, the team in the lead claims victory.

Women's T20 Cricket:

Cricket will return to the Commonwealth Games for the first time in 24 years and just the second time ever. However, it will be first appearance for women's cricket and that too in the T20 format. Prior to this, a men's cricket competition was held at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, with South Africa taking gold by beating Australia in the final in the men's 50-over competition.

There are eight teams who have qualified and Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham will host the matches. England as the host qualifies automatically, along with the top six ranked teams as of April 1, 2021 as direct qualifiers. The last place was awarded to winners of the CWG Qualifier tournament, Sri Lanka.

The six direct qualifiers' allocation will depend on their representation of at least four out of the six Commonwealth Games Federation regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Caribbean, Europe and Oceania). If the criteria isn't met, then teams ranked below were considered. The six direct qualifiers include Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Barbados.

Wheelchair Basketball 3x3:

Played for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth Games, the Wheelchair Basketball 3x3 is to be held at the Smithfield site.

The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) and the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) announced that six teams will take part in the Games. The six men's teams are England, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Australia, Canada, Malaysia - and the six women's teams are England, South Africa, Scotland, Australia, Canada, Kenya.

The wheelchair basketball competition will run in a two-group format followed by the knockouts and finals.

Para Table Tennis:

In August 2019, Para Table Tennis was announced as one of sports to be added to the Birmingham 2022 programme. The competition will be held at the NEC Hall 3 along with table tennis. A total of 32 players with 16 of each gender can qualify to participate at the Games.

The criteria for qualification include - players on the ITTF Table Tennis Rankings as of May 1, 2022 with only one per CGF region, a player on the aforementioned ranking not already qualified and recipients of CGF/ITTF bipartite invitations.

Esports:

Esports would be also included in the CWG 2022 as a demonstration event and there's a high likelihood of it being added to the Games programme in future editions.

The inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championship will have separate branding, medals, and organisation and will include both men and women's Dota 2 (Valve), eFootball (KONAMI) and Rocket League (Psyonix) events.