The ICC Intercontinental Cup (4-day First-Class) competition for Associate member countries has been a definitive structure to ensure multi-day format exposure for players and it has benefited the likes of Ireland and Afghanistan on their way to becoming Test status countries.
Following Ireland’s and Afghanistan’s elevation to Test status and them being no longer part of the Intercontinental Cup structure, it was widely discussed on what the future lies with regards to the competition.
Following the ICC meetings in Singapore in 2019, ICC Global Development head William Glenwright had said that ICC remains committed towards providing a multi-day competition/structure for the Associate members and would seek out “expressions of interest” from the interested cricket boards to determine how it’ll be taken forward and a proposed structure will be provided to the members to have the choice of playing the longer format of the game.
As of today, there won’t be an expected start for the next cycle of the ICC Intercontinental Cup (2023-2031) and one assumes that the next set of developments in the matter will be up for discussion during the next ICC Annual General Meeting in July 2021.
ICC CEO Geoff Allardice has said that the current priority is to increase the competitiveness of the sport in more Associate countries in the T20 and 50-overs formats of the game and not in the 4-day format.
