England Women Cricket Fixtures 2026: Complete Guide

The England women cricket fixtures 2026 England programme was the biggest home schedule the team has ever been given: three touring sides, a home World Cup, a Test match at Lord's and a minimum of eighteen matches on English soil. Most of it has now been played. As of mid-August 2026 only the September ODI series against Ireland remains, and this page carries the complete season — dates, grounds, UK start times and results for what has gone, and the confirmed details for what is left.

Everything below is drawn from the ECB's published home summer schedule and the completed match records. Where a detail was never confirmed publicly — a broadcast slot for a specific September fixture, say — this page says so rather than guessing.

Still to come: the Metro Bank ODI series v Ireland

Match	Date	Ground	Start
1st ODI	Tuesday 1 September	The Uptonsteel County Ground, Leicester	1pm (d/n)
2nd ODI	Thursday 3 September	The Central Co-op County Ground, Derby	1pm (d/n)
3rd ODI	Sunday 6 September	Visit Worcestershire New Road, Worcester	11am

Three 50-over matches inside six days, all at county headquarters rather than Test grounds, and all counting towards the 2025–2029 ICC Women's Championship — the qualifying structure for the next 50-over World Cup. The first two are day/night fixtures finishing under lights; the Worcester game is a daytime Sunday. We have written separate guides to the Derby ODI match guide and the Worcester ODI match guide, covering travel, tickets and what to expect at each ground.

This is the only cricket Ireland's women play in England this year, and the fixtures were confirmed alongside the rest of the summer in July 2025. Both sides met once already in 2026, in the World Cup group stage.

The completed season, match by match

England v New Zealand — Metro Bank ODIs (May)

Match	Date	Ground	Result
1st ODI	Sun 10 May	Banks Homes Riverside, Durham	England won by 1 wicket
2nd ODI	Wed 13 May	The County Ground, Northampton	No result
3rd ODI	Sat 16 May	Sophia Gardens, Cardiff	New Zealand won by 17 runs (DLS)

The series finished 1-1. The opener at Chester-le-Street was the match of the three by a distance: New Zealand were bowled out for 210, and England got home with one wicket standing and ten balls to spare. Northampton was washed out entirely, and rain shortened the Cardiff decider to 33 overs a side, where New Zealand's total proved 17 too many on Duckworth-Lewis-Stern.

England v New Zealand — Vitality IT20s (May)

Match	Date	Ground	Result
1st IT20	Wed 20 May	The Central Co-op County Ground, Derby	England won by 7 wickets
2nd IT20	Sat 23 May	The Spitfire Ground, Canterbury	New Zealand won by 14 runs
3rd IT20	Mon 25 May	The 1st Central County Ground, Hove	England won by 7 wickets

England took the T20 leg 2-1. The Hove decider was the most one-sided cricket of the whole New Zealand tour: the tourists were dismissed for 80 and England knocked the runs off inside fourteen overs.

England v India — Vitality IT20s (May–June)

Match	Date	Ground	Result
1st IT20	Thu 28 May	Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford	India won by 38 runs
2nd IT20	Sat 30 May	Seat Unique Stadium, Bristol	England won by 26 runs
3rd IT20	Tue 2 June	The Cooper Associates County Ground, Taunton	England won by 6 wickets

Another 2-1 series win, and a better one for the closing fortnight before the World Cup. India won the opener at Chelmsford comfortably enough, but England chased down 181 at Taunton with an over to spare to take the series.

ICC Women's T20 World Cup (12 June – 5 July)

England hosted the tournament across seven grounds — Edgbaston, Old Trafford, Lord's, The Oval, Headingley, the Bristol County Ground and the Rose Bowl — with twelve teams in two groups of six and the top two from each progressing. England came through their group and reached the final at Lord's on 5 July, where Australia chased down England's 150 for 4 with seventeen balls to spare to win by seven wickets and take a seventh title. Total attendance across the 33 matches was 245,815.

One group fixture matters for the September series: England beat Ireland by four wickets at the Rose Bowl on 16 June, having bowled them out for 118 for 9, with Nat Sciver-Brunt making 48. It was a win, and a laboured one. Our tournament page has the T20 World Cup on home soil in full.

England v India — Rothesay Test, Lord's (10–13 July)

The first women's Test match ever staged at Lord's, and a chastening one for the hosts. India made 285 and declared their second innings on 341 for 7, bowling England out for 170 and 186 to win by 270 runs — the fourth-largest margin by runs in the history of women's Test cricket. Kranti Gaud took 5 for 37 and 2 for 54 and was named player of the match; Sophie Ecclestone's maiden international fifty was one of very few England positives, and Sneh Rana's 4 for 42 finished the game inside 95 minutes on the final morning.

The occasion delivered on its own terms — a full house for a women's Test at Lord's is a milestone regardless of the scoreboard — but the cricket was one-sided. The ground's own long history now includes it.

How the summer reads

Set out end to end, the pattern is easy enough to see. England won both T20 international series they played against touring sides and drew the one bilateral ODI series, which is a perfectly respectable return. But the two matches with the largest audiences, both at Lord's within nine days of each other, were losses — a World Cup final and a Test — and those are the results a season gets remembered by.

Nat Sciver-Brunt captained throughout, with Charlotte Edwards as head coach. The September ODIs against Ireland are therefore both the smallest fixtures of the summer in profile and, from a purely English point of view, a useful place to finish the year cleanly. For Ireland, the Championship points at stake are worth considerably more than the billing suggests, which is the sort of asymmetry that makes these series more interesting than a scoreline predicts. Their route to this point is covered in our Ireland's rise piece.

Start times, and why they vary

Three of this summer's start times are worth understanding as a pattern rather than a list of numbers.

• 11am starts are used for full-day fixtures where a daytime finish is wanted — the Durham and Cardiff ODIs, the Lord's Test and the Worcester ODI in September. In practice this is the format for weekends and for grounds without a floodlight setup suited to a long ODI.
• 1pm day/night starts shift a 50-over match into the evening so that a weekday crowd can arrive after work. Northampton, and both Leicester and Derby in September, use this.
• 6.30pm IT20 starts are the standard weekday evening slot for a twenty-over game, with 2.30pm used for a Saturday.

Times in this guide are BST, which is what the ECB publishes and what the grounds work to. British Summer Time runs until late October, so every fixture in the 2026 home season is BST rather than GMT.

Where the fixtures are played

One notable thing about 2026 is how widely the women's programme was spread. Including the World Cup venues, England's women played at Chester-le-Street, Northampton, Cardiff, Derby, Canterbury, Hove, Chelmsford, Bristol, Taunton and Lord's before September's trips to Leicester, Derby again and Worcester.

That is a deliberate policy. Putting a women's international at a county headquarters produces a fuller ground, a better atmosphere and a stronger local occasion than the same fixture would generate in a half-empty Test stadium — while the genuinely large events, the World Cup and the Lord's Test, go to the biggest grounds. The list of which grounds are which is in our English cricket grounds guide.

What the Championship cycle means for the schedule

The reason a September ODI series against Ireland exists at all is the 2025–2029 ICC Women's Championship. The competition works on a simple principle: each participating side plays a set number of bilateral ODI series home and away across a four-year window, points are awarded per match, and the standings feed directly into qualification for the next 50-over World Cup. It replaced an era in which women's ODI fixtures were arranged ad hoc, and in which smaller nations could go years without playing a full member at all.

For England, the practical effect is that the home summer now has a fixed 50-over skeleton around which the T20 internationals and any Test are arranged. Bilateral ODI series are not optional friendlies to be squeezed out when a World Cup arrives; they are the qualification pathway. That is why England played three ODIs against New Zealand in May, and why three more against Ireland are being played in September even after a home World Cup has already been staged and lost.

For Ireland it is a bigger change still. A side that historically had to build a case for recognition through one-off upsets now has a guaranteed run of fixtures against full members, with a published route to a World Cup at the end of it. Three ODIs in the English Midlands in September may look like a minor entry on the calendar. In the context of that cycle it is not.

Tickets for what remains

Only the three Ireland ODIs are still to be played, and tickets for those are sold by the host counties — Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Worcestershire — with the ECB's 2026 international ballot having opened back in autumn 2025. County members frequently get free or discounted entry to women's internationals at their own ground; Derbyshire, for one, has confirmed complimentary member entry for the 3 September match.

Advance prices are lower than gate prices, accessible seating is generally booked directly with the club rather than through general sale, and family and junior concessions exist at all three venues. The full mechanics are in our ticket guide.

FAQ

What England women's cricket fixtures are left in 2026?

Three Metro Bank ODIs against Ireland: Leicester on Tuesday 1 September, Derby on Thursday 3 September and Worcester on Sunday 6 September. Those close England's 2026 home international season.

Did England win the Women's T20 World Cup in 2026?

No. England hosted the tournament and reached the final at Lord's on 5 July, where Australia won by seven wickets to claim a seventh title.

Who won the women's Test at Lord's in 2026?

India, by 270 runs, in the first women's Test played at the ground. It was staged from 10 to 13 July, with Kranti Gaud named player of the match.

How did England do against New Zealand in 2026?

The ODI series finished 1-1 with one match abandoned, and England won the T20 international series 2-1.

Are the September ODIs part of a World Cup qualifying competition?

Yes. The England v Ireland series counts towards the 2025–2029 ICC Women's Championship, which determines qualification for the next 50-over Women's World Cup.

Where can I watch England Women's remaining 2026 fixtures?

England's home internationals have been shown live on Sky Sports Cricket under the current ECB rights arrangement, with BBC radio commentary and highlights alongside. Confirm the specific listing for each September match closer to the date. Our overview of TV and radio options explains the wider picture.

Where to go next

That is the England women cricket fixtures 2026 England season in full: eighteen-plus home matches, a World Cup, a Lord's Test, and three ODIs left in September to finish it. For the background to this team — how it got from 1934 to a sold-out Lord's — see the longer history of England's women's team and the structure of the domestic women's game underneath it. The multi-format rivalry that shapes most England summers is explained in our piece on Ashes summers, the men's story sits in England's cricket history, and the 100-ball competition fills the August gap between these international blocks. Everything else lives on the England cricket coverage hub.