India Awarded Three World Cricket Events
World cricket will be spending more time in the sub-continent over the next few years, after the ICC awarded India with the hosting rights to the World Twenty20 in 2016, the second World Test Championship in 2021, and the 50-over World Cup in 2023.
Meanwhile, as expected, cricket’s governing body also confirmed that the inaugural ICC World Test Championship will be staged in 2017 by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in June and July.
The hosts were confirmed at the International Cricket Council Annual Conference in London this weekend.
The World Test Championship replaces the Champions Trophy in the ICC’s calendar, which was also hosted in England last month. India defeated the host nation in a rain-affected match at Edgebaston in June, in the last edition of its kind.
The men’s and women’s World Twenty20 events will continue to be played in parallel every four years, with Australia hosting in 2020, while the women’s event will remain biennial – with West Indies and South Africa staging stand-alone Women’s World Twenty20s in 2018 and 2022.
In 2015, Ireland and Scotland will co-host the qualifying event for the 2016 World Twenty20 in India.
ICC chief executive David Richardson said: ‘We are delighted to confirm the exciting schedule of events through to 2023. The Champions Trophy in England and Wales was highly acclaimed and appreciated by all. However, the principle of one pinnacle global event for each of the three formats over a four-year cycle is a good one and, as such, the board has agreed to replace the Champions Trophy with the World Test Championship.’
‘Now that the World Test Championship has been confirmed, we’ll work on the playing conditions and qualification criteria, and will submit these to the ICC board for approval in due course.’
Meanwhile, New Zealand was awarded the Women’s World Cup in 2021.
The meeting also saw the ‘requalifying’ period for a player to switch back to his original nationality reduced from four-years to two, the third umpire can review a potential no-ball for a full toss or bouncer at the fall of a wicket, LED lights in the bails and stumps were approved for use in limited-overs internationals, and Afghanistan continued their remarkable rise in the sport with promotion from affiliate to associate member – entitling them to improved ICC funding.
