The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup will become a 14 team, 54 match event in 2027 and 2031, whilst the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will be expanded to a 20 team, 55 match event in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030. An eight team Champions Trophy will be hosted in 2025 and 2029. ICC World Test Championship Finals will be hosted in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031.
The U19 Women’s World Cup will be played in T20 format and the editions will be held every two years from 2025 onwards until 2031 in the ICC events cycle. ICC are also exploring the possibility of including another venue in the Middle East to host the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, if it’s moved from India to the UAE in October/November 2019. UAE grounds are scheduled for a busy period of cricket matches that includes hosting franchise-based T20 events of Pakistan and India in the coming months.
The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup format will have two groups of seven, with the top three in each group progressing to a Super Six stage, followed by semi-finals and final. This is the same format that was used in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2003. The format of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will consist of four groups of five, with the top two from each group going through to a Super Eights stage, followed by the knockout stages of semi-finals and a final. The Champions Trophy will follow previous editions with two groups of four, semi-finals and final.
The significant change in the T20 World Cup format is that the Associates wouldn’t be competing in any kind of “first round” to qualify for the main draw with the full member nations. The Associates will enter as equals along with the full member countries and will have greater chances of advancing from the groups into the Super Eights stage of the competition.
The hosts for the Men’s events will be decided in September following a selection process that will get underway in June, while the hosting process for Women’s and U19 events will commence in November.
