Cricket will witness history on 14 November 2026 when Test Twenty, the world’s first mixed‑gender format, launches at the Singhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo. For the first time, girls’ runs and boys’ runs will merge on one scoreboard to decide a single result.
Each team fields 20 girls and 20 boys. Girls play girls, boys play boys, but their scores combine. A toss decides not only who bats first but also whether the girls or boys open the day. Runs scored in daylight with the red ball carry into the night session under floodlights with the white ball. “Her runs decide his match. His runs decide hers.”
Sri Lanka, with its unmatched youth cricket culture and iconic SSC ground, becomes the founding home of this format. From thousands of hopefuls across five continents, 160 players aged 13 to 21 have been selected by a global committee chaired by Rajkumar Sharma, the coach who discovered Virat Kohli.
Backing the format are cricketing legends AB de Villiers, Matthew Hayden, and Sir Clive Lloyd, alongside operations head Mike Fordham and co‑founder Rohit Maroo.
Founder Gaurav Bahirvani, who authored the Parity Rule, said:“Parity is not only in the rules. Some nights, it will be the girls under the floodlights, in primetime, in front of the world. Other nights, the boys. Every night, one scoreboard.”
“For the first time in the history of the game, girls and boys will win together, or lose together. That moment now belongs to Sri Lanka.”
From Colombo, cricket’s fourth format begins—where every run counts twice, and victory is shared.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
