The World Baseball Softball Confederation has announced the official tournament schedule for the 2016 Women's Softball World Championships that will take place in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, from 15-24 July.
The 15th edition of the women's flagship event will have a record 31 teams participating and will showcase a record total of 124 international games, including 45 Opening Round games, 45 Second Round games, 17 Placement Playoff games and 17 Championship Playoff games.
The competing nations have been divided into eight pools of four for a preliminary round-robin. Teams will then be allocated to one of eight sections of four, depending on where they finished in the opening round-robin, to play in a second round-robin leading to Championship and Placing Double Page playoffs.
The Great Britain Women’s Fastpitch Team has been seeded second in an opening round-robin pool consisting of Canada, Ireland and Uganda, and will play one game on each of the first three days of the tournament.
Round-robin pools
The 31 nations competing in the 2016 WBSC Women’s Softball World Championship have been allocated to preliminary round-robin groups as follows:
Pool A: Japan, Venezuela, France
Pool B: USA, Brazil, Austria, Israel
Pool C: Australia, Mexico, Switzerland, Serbia
Pool D: Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Uganda
Pool E: Chinese Taipei, Puerto Rico, India, Ecuador
Pool F: Netherlands, Czech Republic, Philippines, Pakistan
Pool G: China, Cuba, Guatemala, Greece
Pool H: New Zealand, Italy, Kenya, Peru
Stepping onto the women's softball world stage for the first time at this tournament will be Brazil, Ecuador, India, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Serbia, Switzerland and Uganda.
All 31 teams will compete on Opening Day, Friday 15 July, with games starting at 8:30 am local time and probably not finishing until after 10.00 pm.
The GB Women have drawn a tough assignment on Opening Day, Friday 15 July, with a game against the host team and World #4 Canada on the main field at 8.15 pm, shortly after the Opening Ceremonies have concluded. If nothing else, GB will be guaranteed a massive crowd for their first game in the competition!
The next two days should be easier for GB, with games against Uganda at 5.30 pm on Saturday and Ireland at 5.30 pm on Sunday. Both teams will be competing for the first time in the World Championships, while Great Britain will be making its fifth consecutive appearance.
A first or second-place finish in the pool will take the GB Women’s Team forward to the Championship round-robin.
The full schedule for the tournament can be downloaded here.
Playoffs
Championship and Placement round-robins will begin on Monday 18 July, and the GB Women will again be in a group of four teams -- hopefully in the Championship round-robin, with two going forward to a Double Page Playoff.
Assuming that the GB Women finish second to Canada in Pool D, their second-round opponents could be Italy or New Zealand, Japan and Chinese Taipei or Puerto Rico.
Should GB manage to beat Canada and win Pool D, second-round opponents are likely to be Venezuela, Chinese Taipei or Puerto Rico and New Zealand or Italy.
So while a win against Canada would mean that GB could avoid the World Champions Japan in the second round, a place in the Page Playoffs is still likely to depend on whether we can beat Italy or New Zealand and Puerto Rico or Chinese Taipei.
One of GB’s memorable World Championship wins was a 1-0 victory over Chinese Taipei in 2012 in Whitehorse, Canada, when GB pitcher Stacie Townsend threw a no-hitter. Chinese Taipei finished fifth in the most recent World Championships, held in the Netherlands in 2014.
At the end of the tournament, on Sunday 24 July, the gold medal game will be played at 6.00 pm local time and will be preceded by the bronze medal match at 1.00 pm.