There’s not just a World Cup in football in the coming months, but cricket and rugby league too!

For many people, when they hear about a ‘Winter World Cup’, the majority would instantly think of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. However, before that, we have many other World Cups to look forward to in the sporting world, such as in cricket and rugby!

The 2022 T20 World Cup will showcase the fast-paced format of the second-most popular sport on the planet, with the greatest players of every nation battling it out for glory. The same for the 2021 (delayed by COVID) Rugby League World Cup as competitors in the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair divisions face off to be considered the greatest around the globe.

2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup

The fast-paced and ever-thrilling format of Twenty20 cricket arrives ‘Down Under’ for the Men’s T20 World Cup. The format always guarantees us plenty of hard-hitting action, and we expect more of the same as the world’s best cricketers all descend onto Australian soil.

It may be a surprise to many that we are already arriving at another T20 World Cup. The previous edition was only last year (held in the UAE and Oman) which eventually took place after delays due to the COVID pandemic. The tournament before 2021 was… all the way back in 2016, so we’ve certainly been getting our cricket fix as of late!

Australia are not only the hosts, but they are the reigning champions coming into this tournament after winning in 2021, their first T20 World Cup triumph. As a result, they have the chance to be the first ever nation to win this tournament back-to-back, and also the first ever nation to be champions on home soil. With home advantage spurring them on even further, who can stop the Aussies? 

Although they are the theoretical favourites, Australia haven’t looked entirely convincing in their preparations for the World Cup. They planned 3 T20 test series to prepare for this tournament and so far, have won one (against West Indies) and lost one (against India). The third test series, at the time of writing this article, is still ongoing and England currently lead 1-0. There’s work to do for Australia, but leading batsman David Warner has looked strong with scores such as 75 and 73, and there is plenty of talent in the middle-order batting, not least recent debutant Tim David.

England haven’t won the T20 World Cup since 2010, but they are still the reigning champions of the 50-over Cricket World Cup (won in 2019), and many of the cricketers from that squad can comfortably play in the T20 format. Examples of those are captain Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes. Stokes’ heroics for England in ODI and test cricket prove that he will always be a threat against any opponent, but it is Buttler who is tipped to be one of the highest-scoring batsmen in this tournament, alongside Pakistan duo Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. Buttler doesn’t see England as favourites, but he expects his team to be dangerous to the opposition.

In last year’s World Cup it was Babar Azam who finished as the highest run scorer, and the Pakistan captain will be desperate to take revenge on Australia in this tournament, after the Aussies eliminated Pakistan in the semi-final of the previous edition. Another nation desperate for revenge will of course be Australia’s neighbours, New Zealand, who finished runners-up last year. It seems captain Kane Williamson and his teammates are cursed in international cricket, as they were also runners-up in the 2015 and 2019 Cricket World Cup, so they will surely believe the time will come soon for them to be champions in an international tournament. Will that be now?

The only team to win the T20 World Cup on more than one occasion is the West Indies (in 2012 and 2016), but due to a poor performance as defending champions in 2016, they will have to appear in the First Round of this year’s tournament, in an attempt to qualify for the Super 12. As mentioned, they lost a preparation T20 series to Australia, but in their most recent warm-up match they defeated the UAE. The tournament for the Caribbean side starts in a few days against Scotland, where the team that no longer includes cricketing legends Dwayne Bravo and Chris Gayle (who both retired after the previous T20 World Cup), will hope to reach the Super 12 and perform better than they did last year. After all, they will host the next World Cup in 2024 (alongside the United States), so they will want to arrive there as reigning champions!

2021 Rugby League World Cup – Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair

Cricket isn’t the only sport where you will find a World Cup this month: look no further than the 2021 (delayed due to COVID) Rugby League World Cup! The eyes of the Rugby League world look down to England who will host the competition for the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair tournaments and, after the Three Lions finishing runners-up in the previous Men’s tournament, Shaun Wane will be hoping his players can go one better this time and lift the trophy on home soil.

There’s just one thing stopping them, the truly behemothic Australia. The Kangaroos have remarkably won 8 of the last 9 World Cups, a staggering achievement that proves their dominance in the sport. Unsurprisingly, they are favourites for the trophy, but the team hasn’t played an international match since 2019 and will be offering 13 players their international debuts. Can this exciting new team continue in the form of the players before them?

Australia’s first match will be against Fiji, who were a surprise semi-finalist in the 2017 World Cup and showed plenty of promise. They even eliminated another powerhouse, New Zealand, in the quarterfinals of that tournament, but the Fijians arrive at this tournament having fallen to recent defeats to Papua New Guinea and England in their preparations for the World Cup.

New Zealand will want to perform much better than in the previous edition, and the Kiwis look in fine form after hammering Leeds Rhinos 74-0, as well as winning against Tonga in another warm-up match. As for England, runners-up in 2017, they will have to start the tournament against one of the dark horses of the competition, Samoa, and a list of injuries for Shaun Wane’s side sees the experts viewing an English triumph as unlikely. However, anything can happen!

The Women’s Rugby League World Cup will be defended by Australia who have won the last two editions of the tournament, and in 2017 they destroyed any opponent that faced them, going unbeaten throughout the entire competition. Can they achieve that again? They defeated New Zealand in that final, coincidentally the only nation that holds more World Cup titles than the Aussies (New Zealand – 3, Australia – 2). These are the only two teams to have ever won the Women’s Rugby League World Cup, but there are other fierce competitors, such as England and Canada, who have previously appeared in semi-finals and will want to go one step further to glory this time.

As for the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup, we arrive at its 4th edition, with England winning the first tournament back in 2008. Since then, France have won back-to-back world titles and will hope to make it three in-a-row here. The rivalry between both England and France has only grown with each of the last two finals being between these two nations, but there are plenty of other teams in this year’s tournament who want to earn their first World Cup trophy. There are competitors from Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania, and there is every chance of a shock victory for anyone!