The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has announced the addition of Beach Volleyball, Women’s Cricket and Para Table Tennis to the sports programme for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The announcement sees Beach Volleyball return for a second Games after a successful debut at Gold Coast 2018, where Team Scotland’s men’s and women’s pairings both reached the quarter-final stage.

Birmingham 2022 will mark a Games debut for Women’s Cricket in the T20 format, with the sport’s only appearance to date being a men’s One Day format competition at the 1998 Games in Kuala Lumpur in which Scotland were represented. Eight teams will compete at Birmingham’s iconic Edgbaston Stadium. This adds to a strong female sports programme which, as it stands, will see two more women’s medal events than men’s at the Games, with 135 compared to 133. There are currently seven mixed events, with the confirmed event programme to be announced next year.

It marks the first time in history that a major multi-sport event will feature more women’s than men’s medal events.

Para Table Tennis has been included in four of the last five Commonwealth Games with a Women’s Wheelchair Singles event in 2002, 2006 and 2010 and Men’s and Women’s TT6-10 Singles events in 2018. With the inclusion of Para Table Tennis, the Games will have more para sports on the programme at a Commonwealth Games than ever before, with eight para sports now confirmed for the multi-sport competition.

The sport programme for Birmingham 2022 now includes 19 sports, the highest number of any Games to date. The full list of sports on the programme is: Aquatics, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Cricket, Cycling, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Lawn Bowls, Netball, Rugby 7s, Squash, Table Tennis, Triathlon, Weightlifting and Wrestling.