Following up on ICC’s decision to award ODI status to multi-team tournaments in which a team or two did not have ODI status at the time of the event being played (ICC’s decision to award 2018 Asia Cup matches involving Hong Kong ODI status), the next multi-team tournaments like the 2022 ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) Qualifiers and the ICC CWC Qualifiers Play-off tournaments will carry ODI status for all matches.
The 2022 ICC CWC Qualifiers will be an 10-team event much like the 2018 edition held in Zimbabwe and will feature the bottom five countries from the CWC Super League (12 Full members + Netherlands), top three countries from CWC League 2 (Scotland, UAE, Nepal + Top 4 team’s from 2019 ICC WCL Division 2) and top two countries from CWC Qualifiers play-off event (Bottom 4 from CWC League 2 + Top 2 from CWC Challenge League groups A & B).
As already announced by ICC, the CWC League 2 tournament countries will have ODI status and hence, all the matches to be played in the tournament will carry ODI status. The 12 countries ranked 21st – 32nd in the ICC World Cricket League divisional structure will constitute the 6-team each in League A & B of the CWC Challenge League and all the matches to be played in the tournament will carry official List-A status (each country in either groups to play the remaining 5 countries thrice to play a total of 15 List-A matches in the entire duration of Challenge League, starting in 2019).
The six even-ranked sides from 21st – 32nd will constitute League B, while the remaining six odd-ranked sides will constitute League A.
Hence, the 2 countries (Top team from League A & B) will join the ICC CWC Qualifiers play-off tournament and play all their matches with full ODI status. It brings significant interest to the countries in CWC Challenge League A & B to have more competitive matches and vie for the two spots into the CWC Qualifiers Play-off’s.
