Following the conclusion of International Cricket Council’s meeting from Oct 16th – 20th, 2018 in Singapore, the landscape of Associate member cricket is on the rise and gets better than ever before for the countries.
In a direct and simplified pathway being provided to the top Associate member countries in the ICC World Cricket League (Championship), the new league beyond the Cricket World Cup Super League (12 Full members & Netherlands) will be renamed as Cricket World Cup League 2 and will feature the top 7 Associate member countries, ranked 14th until 20th in the current World Cricket League structure.
New qualification pathway for ICC Men's Cricket World Cup approved at ICC Board meetings in Singapore. Videos interviews with David Richardson and William Glenwright available here https://t.co/lku9smgAt6 https://t.co/c1EZ2FgcUL via @icc pic.twitter.com/AlftPGsrGK
— ICC Media (@ICCMediaComms) October 20, 2018
The new structure will see every of the 7 member countries (Scotland, UAE, Nepal joined by Top 4 team’s from WCL Division 2 in 2019) play a total of 36 ODI status matches, starting from May 2019 and will run for 2 1/2 years of duration. Hence, a member country will play the other 6 countries in 6 ODI matches during the duration of the tournament.
The Top 3 teams in the CWC League 2 at the end of the Championship will advance directly to ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers in 2022, while the bottom 4 team’s will be relegated to Cricket World Cup play-off competition in 2022. The World Cup qualifiers will be a 10-team event with bottom 5 team’s from Cricket World Cup Super League joined by top 3 team’s from CWC League 2 and top 2 team’s from World Cup Qualifiers play-off tournament.
All the 7 member countries will be part of the ICC ODI team rankings table and hence, all the 136 matches being played in the CWC League 2 will have official ODI status.
