Following the conclusion of the World Cup Group Stages and Canada Cup, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) released the latest World Rankings for Women’s Softball with Ireland retaining its position of 17th in the world from among 65 softball programmes with 699 points.
The WBSC Softball World Rankings measure national team performance from the U-12 to the top level in WBSC-sanctioned international competitions over a four-year period including the recent WBSC Women’s Softball World Cup Group Stages and the U-15 Women’s Softball Asia Cup.
Ireland’s ranking of 17th coupled with Israel and Germanys drop in the rankings, means Ireland are now the 6th highest ranked European nation in women’s world softball.
The rankings also reflect the expiration of points in 2019 going back four years such as the Women’s Softball Asian Championship 2019 and Women’s Softball European Championship 2019. The rankings do not reflect the points earned by Ireland when finishing third at the 2023 U-18 European Championships
Women’s Softball World Rankings in detail
WBSC Women’s Softball World Cup Group A winners the United States and Group C winners Japan (3,201 points) retained their positions as No. 1 and No. 2 in the World Rankings while Group B winner Puerto Rico and Chinese Taipei switched positions this time, the former taking the No. 3 spot with 3,096 points and the latter moving down to No. 4 with 2,812 points.
Canada and Mexico also retained their positions at fifth and sixth, respectively, followed by Australia moving up two places to No. 7.
European programmes Italy, Netherlands and Czech Republic are in eighth to 10th positions. Italy stayed at No. 8, while the Netherlands moved one place up and Czech Republic moved three places down in the rankings.
Positions 11 to 20 have seen a lot of movement in the ranking, as No. 11 China, No. 12 Spain and No. 17 Ireland held on to their positions, while five programmes, namely Great Britain, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Peru have all moved up the rankings.
Cuba made the biggest jump, moving 14 positions to No. 14 followed by Curacao (up 13) and Botswana (up 11), while Israel and Germany moved six and five positions down No. 19 and 20, respectively.
