Fox Sports has announced its plans to launch a dedicated 24/7 International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s Cricket World Cup channel next month.

The move comes as Fox Sports is set to show every game of the tournament live and ad-free across the new Women’s World Cup channel, Fox Cricket, and other Fox Sports channels.

The dedicated channel will also run 24/7 by providing highlights packages, replays and additional unique content throughout the tournament.

Fox Cricket general manager, Matt Weiss, said the channel will also showcase highlights and replays from previous editions of the event and other women’s cricket events, including Australia’s ICC Women’s T20 World Cup win at the MCG in 2020 on International Women’s Day, Tuesday 8 March.

“No broadcaster in Australia delivers more coverage of Women’s sport than Foxtel Group and Fox Cricket has been a big part of that,” Weiss said.

“We delivered every game of the WBBL (Women’s Big Bash League) season for the first time this summer, extended our Ashes coverage and now have a dedicated World Cup channel to give this event the coverage it deserves and fuelling the hunger for more cricket from our growing audiences,” he said.

The announcement follows a commitment of increased women’s cricket coverage by Foxtel after the brand revealed every match of the tournament would be made available on Kayo Freebies, in addition to the dedicated channel.

The Kayo Freebies commitment followed Channel Nine announcing it would not broadcast the event after revealing it had secured broadcast rights for the men’s T20 World Cup in Australia and the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in India.

The deal was part of a wider sub-licensing agreement with Foxtel and meant the tournament would not be accessible for free for all Australians before the Kayo Freebies announcement.

After news emerged Nine would not broadcast the women’s tournament on free-to-air TV, Australian women’s cricket athletes, Alyssa Healy and Rachael Haynes, expressed their disappointment.

“Not having it on free-to-air, it kind of excludes a fair chunk of our population who don’t want to pay or can’t afford to pay for subscription TV,” Healy said.

“It’s a little bit of a slap in the face to say we’re not commercially viable… it’s a little bit hard to take in that regard.

“With fans unable to travel, viewership is probably more relevant than bums on seats right now,” she said.