Australia's Twenty20 World Cup organising committee is dreaming big, outlining a vision to fill the MCG and break the world record for the highest attendance at a women's sporting match.
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Meg Lanning's team will arrive home soon, having defeated England in the T20 World Cup final to deliver Cricket Australia (CA) the good-news story it so dearly craves amid recent upheaval and angst.
Australia have already spoken of their desire to defend the T20 title in 16 months, when Melbourne will host the tournament final.
That game could easily shatter the record Australian crowd of 41,975 who had watched an AFLW fixture this year at Perth's new stadium.
Nick Hockley, chief executive of the 2020 T20 World Cup, has an even-higher mark in mind.
"We'd absolutely like to go for that. We've also got an opportunity to go one better," Hockley told AAP.
"The highest attendance for a women's sporting event was the 1999 FIFA women's World Cup final. They had 90,185.
"We'd love to break that world record.
"We know the ground can hold that many. Obviously, we need everyone to get behind the event."
A crowd of just 2274 watched the women's one-day World Cup final in 2009 at North Sydney Oval, highlighting how the landscape was changing rapidly.
Sight screens mean the capacity at the MCG is reduced compared to AFL. The record crowd for cricket at the famed venue is 93,013 from the men's ODI World Cup final in 2015.
Breaking that mark will require the perfect storm of two high-drawing teams, good weather, significant growth in local support and plenty more.
CA has heavily invested in and promoted female cricket in recent years, with the women's Big Bash League (WBBL) a game changer.
The governing body last year signed off on the biggest pay rise in the history of women's sport in Australia, rocketing from $7.5 million over five years to $55.2m.
"This tournament is an opportunity for cricket but also for Australia to really show its leadership in the development of women's sport," said Hockley, who is also overseeing the men's T20 World Cup that Australia will host later in the same year.
"There's a great upward trajectory.
"We saw a sold-out final for the women's 50-over World Cup final at Lord's last year. The crowd for Sunday's final was over 9000 and that's 10 per cent of the whole population of Antigua."
Meanwhile, the International Cricket Council is pushing for women's cricket to be part of the program at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Australian Associated Press
