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by IANS |
Melbourne, March 8 (IANS) The ICC Women's T20 World Cup final broke the world record attendance for a womens cricket match as 86,714 watched Australia beat India at the MCG here on Sunday.
The attendance also marked the highest attendance for a women's sporting event in Australia as the hosts won their fifth T20 World title in front of a home crowd.
The women's and men's T20 World Cups are being held in the same year as standalone events for the first time in 2020.
Five years in the making, the most highly-anticipated occasion in the sport's history lived up to its billing by setting a new attendance record not just for a women's sporting event in Australia, but for women's cricket globally.
It may have fallen just short of beating the world record attendance for a women's sporting fixture, but 86,174 fans filling the iconic MCG is a sight for any sports fan to behold.
In the six previous editions of the tournament, the highest final crowd came in 2009 when 12,717 watched England beat New Zealand in Sydney.
And seeing 73,000 more turn up in Melbourne for the same event 11 years later is a true testament to how far the game has come.
"I never thought I'd be playing in front of a crowd like this," said Australia's Ashleigh Gardner.
"It was amazing to have all those people before us."
Since the 2018 tournament, there has been a 1600 per cent increase in viewing minutes in Australia while the ICC's digital and social platforms have attracted an unprecedented 701 million video views to date - 600 million more than the 2017 50-over tournament recorded overall.
