ICC have once again awarded Cricket Namibia the hosting rights for the ICC World Cricket League Division 2. The 6-team tournament will be held in Apr 2019, and will be the final time the Division will be held before the WCL structure gets discontinued after that.
The Namibian has noted that the hosting rights were awarded to them during the ICC Board and committee meetings held from Oct 15th – 20th, 2018 in Singapore.
Bottom 2 team’s from ICC World Cup qualifiers in 2018 (Hong Kong & Papua New Guinea) will join host’s Namibia & Canada, who remained in ICC WCL Division 2 held in Feb 2018, along with the top 2 team’s from the upcoming ICC WCL Division 3 to be held in Oman from Nov 07th – 21st, 2018.
ICC World Cricket League Division 2 will carry most importance than ever as the top 4 team’s at the end of the tournament will join Scotland, UAE and Nepal in the newly formed Cricket World Cup (CWC) League 2, due to start from May 2019 and will see all the 7 countries play 36 ODI’s each in the next 2 1/2 year period, at the end of which the top 3 team’s will qualify directly for 2022 ICC World Cup qualifiers.
The bottom 2 team’s at the end of Division 2 will be relegated to CWC Challenge League groups (2 groups of 6 team’s each ranked 21-32 in the WCL standings from Division 2-5).
Namibia’s advantage to stage three games on a single day at three different venues plays to their advantage of hosting WCL tournaments. And in Apr 2019, they would be hoping to secure one of the 4 spots available to advance and get ODI entry into ICC ODI team rankings.
