The 2023 ICC Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup was the first edition of the Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup, hosted by South Africa in 2023. The tournament was moved from its original slot at the end of 2021 to January 2023 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixteen teams competed in the tournament, initially divided into four groups.
India, England, Australia and New Zealand progressed to the semi-finals. In the semi-finals, India beat New Zealand by 8 wickets and England beat Australia by 3 runs. The final took place on 29 January 2023 at Senwes Park, Potchefstroom, and saw India beat England by 7 wickets to become the inaugural champions of the ICC Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup.
Originally, the tournament was scheduled to take place in January 2021, before being postponed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2020, the ICC looked at the possibility of deferring the tournament from its scheduled slot of January 2021 to later in the year. In January 2021, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) confirmed that they would host the tournament in December 2021, however the tournament was postponed for a second time, and was moved to January 2023. In January 2022, Geoff Allardice, the CEO of the ICC said that the tournament was "very much on the cards", and that the ICC were starting the process for hosts.
In June 2022, the ICC confirmed the qualification process for the tournament. Hosts South Africa, along with Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe all qualified automatically for the tournament. The United States also qualified automatically, as they were the only eligible team to compete from the Americas regional group. The four remaining places were to be filled by winners of regional qualification groups. The United Arab Emirates were the first team to qualify from the regional groups, after they won the Asia Qualifier. Indonesia won their three-match series against Papua New Guinea to win the East Asia-Pacific group to qualify. It was the first time that Indonesia had qualified for an ICC World Cup tournament at any level. Rwanda won the African Qualifiers to qualify for the World Cup, the first time that Rwanda had qualified for an ICC World Cup tournament at any level. This was also the first ICC Women's World Cup for Scotland, United Arab Emirates, United States, and Zimbabwe at any level.
The 16 teams were divided into four groups of four, and each played once against every other side in their group. The top three teams in each group progressed to the Super Six League stage, where qualifying teams from Group A played against two of the qualifying teams from Group D, and qualifying teams from Group B played against two of the qualifying teams from Group C. Points from matches against teams that also qualified from the first group stage were carried forward into the Super Six League stage. The top two sides from each of the Super Six Leagues progressed to the semi-finals, with the final taking place on 29 January 2023.
Each team could select a squad of fifteen players for the tournament, with additional non-travelling reserves also able to be named. England were the first side to name their squad, doing so on 18 October 2022.
On 5 January 2023, ICC announced the names of fifteen match officials for the tournament, of whom nine were women â making it the highest number of female match officials to be appointed for any ICC event.
The following warm-up matches were played before the tournament's official start:
<small>Source: ESPNcricinfo</small>
<small>Source: ESPNcricinfo</small>
On 30 January 2023, the ICC announced the Team of the Tournament. Grace Scrivens was also named Player of the Tournament.