Kolkata: The International Cricket Council have decided to expand the number of teams in ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup and ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. Men’s Champions Trophy is also going to be re-launched by the council.
The Men’s Cricket World Cup will become a fight between 14 teams, with 54 matches from 2027 onwards, while the Men’s T20 World Cup will be broaden between 20 teams, resulting to 55 matches event in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030. The Champion Trophy will be hosted between eight teams in 2025 and 2029. ICC World Test Championship Finals will be hosted in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031. The events of Women’s cricket has already been validated following the expansion of Cricket World Cup and T20 World Cup. This has formed a major part of ICC’s long-term commitment towards the growth of women’s game.
The Men’s World Cup format will compromise of two groups of seven each, the top three position holders from each group will be progressing towards a stage of Super-Six, followed by semi-finals and final. The pattern for Men’s T20 World Cup will be of four groups consisting five teams each, the top two teams of each group will be going to the Super Eights stage, followed by a knockout stage of semi-finals and final. Whereas the Champions Trophy will follow it’s earlier version, that is editions two groups of four, then semi-finals and final.
The council has requested the managing committee to focus its planning on putting efforts on the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 as the event is staged in UAE with the possibility of having some other venue from the Middle East. A final decision on the hosting issue will be taken later this month with consultation with the concerned countries. The Board has also confirmed that the BCCI will be retained as the hosts of the event regardless of where the event is being played.
