Icc Confirm Expansion Of Men’s World Cup
The ICC has announced the expansion of its men’s World Cup tournaments, as well as the reintroduction of the men’s Champions Trophy.
Announcing the 2024-2031 schedule for its men’s, women’s, and U19 tournaments, the governing body confirmed that the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup will become a 14-team, 54 match event in 2027 and 2031, up from ten teams in 2019.
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will also be expanded to a 20 team, 55 match event in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030.
The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup format will return to that used in the 2003 format of the competition, consisting of two groups of seven, with the top three in each group progressing to a Super Six stage, followed by semi-finals and final.
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will have four groups of five, with the top two from each group going through to a Super Eights stage, followed by the knockout stages of semi-finals and a final.
Meanwhile, an eight-team Champions Trophy will be hosted in 2025 and 2029, following the format of previous editions – two groups of four before a semi-final and final stage. That will run alongside the ICC World Test Championship Finals, which will be hosted in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031.
“Having the ICC event schedule confirmed through to 2031 is a significant step forward for cricket and will form the basis of our growth strategy for the next decade,” said ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice.
“The revised approach to selecting hosts for our events will give us much more flexibility to grow the game and engage new fans. There is a smaller pool of countries with the infrastructure needed to host our senior Men’s events which narrows the selection process. Additionally, many of our Members expressed interest in hosting Women’s and U19 events which gives us a great opportunity to stage events in established and emerging cricket nations.”
The ICC Board also asked for the organisation to ‘focus its planning efforts’ for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 on the event being staged in the UAE with the ‘possibility of including another venue in the Middle East’.
The tournament is scheduled to take place in India in November, having been postponed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The ICC says a final decision on the host country will be taken later this month, but Indian cricket’s governing body, the BCCI, will remain the hosts of the event wherever it is played.
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