Cricket’s first global market research was conducted between November 2017-January 2018 with over 19,000 interviews around the world aged 16-69 years.

"It was really encouraging to see the number of women and girls who follow the sport and for us as a global sport, we are really proud of this number but we don't just want to sit on this number," ICC Head of Media Rights, Broadcast and Digital Aarti Dabas said.

"We want to make cricket a gender equal sport and some of the work we did at the women's World Cup, where we were broadcasting all matches.

"We want to make the sport more visible because it creates role models and it allows more women to take to the sport as a fan or a participant," she said.

The women’s game also continues to gain momentum with two-thirds of cricket fans interested in women’s cricket (68 percent) and the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup (65 percent) – in addition, 70 percent of fans want to see more live coverage of women’s cricket.

There are opportunities to grow game and there will be a focus on attracting more women and girls to the game, as well as trying to engage non-traditional cricket playing nations where there is clearly both interest and opportunity.