Cricket
oi-Gaurav Sharma
Cricket is soon going to see a massive change. The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday gave green signal to big changes in formats for the upcoming Men’s and Women’s World Cups.
According to reports, the cricket governing body Chief Executives’ Committee met in Edinburgh on July 15 and has finalized to make longer tournament routes, higher qualification pressure, and fewer low-stakes matches.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) approved significant format changes for upcoming Men’s and Women’s World Cups, reverting the Men’s ODI World Cup to 14 teams with a new multi-stage structure including a Super 7 round, and confirmed the 2028 Men’s T20 World Cup qualification pathway.
The Men’s ODI World Cup will now be played across four distinct stages. ICC has decided to move back to older format of 14 teams. In last two World Cup editions, 2019 and 2023, only 10 teams from across the world competed.
The competition will begin with a preliminary opening round involving the teams ranked 12th, 13th and 14th. Only the winner of this stage will advance to the next phase, joining the remaining 11 qualified teams.
The next round will consist two groups with six teams each.
At the end of the group phase, the top three sides from each group, along with the highest-ranked fourth-placed team across both groups, will qualify for a newly introduced Super 7 round.
Earlier, it was called Super 6 stage.
The Super 7 stage will be a round-robin format, where every team will rest of the members of the group.
The top four teams from the Super 7 standings will advance to the semi-finals.
The ICC said the revised format is designed to reward consistency while keeping more teams in contention deeper into the tournament.
2028 Men’s T20 World Cup qualification pathway confirmed
The ICC Board also approved the qualification pathway for the 2028 Men’s T20 World Cup. Scotland has been granted direct entry into the Europe Regional Final because of exceptional circumstances linked to its participation in the 2026 edition.
Teams from the 2026 Men’s T20 World Cup that miss automatic qualification will go directly into the Global Qualifier. The remaining places will be decided through regional competitions.
