With 2021 now behind us, it’s time to look forward to 2022 and an exciting 12 months of women’s sport.

Female athletes will have a chance to shine this year, with a number of prestigious sporting events scheduled for the coming months.

GiveMeSport Women picks the top five women’s sport events set to be held in 2022, along with some honourable mentions.

Women’s Ashes – January 27th to February 19th

England’s hopes in the men’s Ashes may have ended sooner than the 14-day quarantine period the players had to undergo, but the women’s competition should be a lot more fiercely contested.

The multi-format series begins on January 27th with a one-off Test in Canberra, followed by three Twenty20 and three one-day internationals.

England are the 50-over world champions, but Australia lifted the T20 crown in 2020, and only had a world record 26-match winning run in one-day internationals ended by India in September.

Australia have also held the Ashes since 2015. England won only one of the seven matches between the two sides when they last met in 2019.

Despite this, England captain Heather Knight has sounded confident about her team’s chances of victory.

"Australia are at their best when they are on top of you and trying to exploit weakness, so we have to make sure we are trying to punch first and win those key battles early," she said.

"We feel in a really good place to do that as we have improved as a team. We have more leaders in the side since 2019 and world-class players who can win us games."