KARACHI
\nThe International Cricket Council (ICC) has approved major changes to the formats of its flagship men\u2019s global tournaments, introducing new competition structures for the ICC Men\u2019s Cricket World Cup and the ICC Men\u2019s T20 World Cup in a bid to increase competitiveness and ensure every match carries greater significance.
\nThe decisions were taken at the ICC Board\u2019s annual meetings in Edinburgh, where the Board approved recommendations from the Chief Executives\u2019 Committee aimed at creating more meaningful contests, strengthening the competitive structure of the tournaments and enhancing the experience for players and fans. While the ICC Men\u2019s Cricket World Cup will continue to feature 14 teams, the tournament will now follow a three-stage format before the knockout rounds.
\nUnder the revised structure, the teams ranked 12th, 13th and 14th will first compete in a round-robin \u201cSuper Series\u201d, with the winner advancing to the main competition.
\nThe second stage will feature two groups of six teams each. The top three teams from each group, along with the next highest-placed team across both groups, will qualify for a newly introduced \u201cSuper 7\u201d stage.
\nThe Super 7 will be played in a round-robin format, with the top four teams advancing to the semi-finals. The semi-finals will see the first-placed team take on the fourth-placed side, while the second-placed team will face the third-placed team, with the winners progressing to the final.
\nAccording to the ICC, the new structure has been designed to ensure every stage of the tournament carries greater consequence, with meaningful contests from the opening match through to the final while continuing to provide emerging nations with opportunities to compete on cricket\u2019s biggest stage.
\nThe ICC also approved significant changes to the Men\u2019s T20 World Cup, retaining the 20-team event while expanding opportunities for teams to remain in contention deeper into the tournament.
\nThe group stage will now consist of five groups of four teams instead of four groups of five. The top two teams from each group will qualify for a new Super 10 stage, replacing the previous Super Eights.
\nThe Super 10 stage will comprise two groups of five teams. The winners of each group will qualify directly for the semi-finals.
\nA new Eliminator stage will also be introduced, with the second-placed team in one Super 10 group facing the third-placed team from the other group. The winners of the two Eliminators will claim the remaining semi-final berths.
\nThe ICC said the revised format was influenced by the performances of emerging teams at the 2026 Men\u2019s T20 World Cup and is intended to increase competitive intensity while ensuring the closing matches of the Super 10 stage remain significant.
\nThe ICC Board also endorsed a proposal for a new 16-team global tournament exclusively for Associate Member nations, which is expected to be played before future Men\u2019s T20 World Cups.
\nThe proposed event aims to improve competitive standards among Associate teams while providing them with a marquee global competition. The proposal remains subject to final approval by the ICC Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee at its November meeting.
\nThe Board also approved the qualification pathway for the 2028 ICC Men\u2019s T20 World Cup.
\nScotland will enter directly into the Europe Regional Final due to exceptional circumstances surrounding its participation in the 2026 tournament.
\nTeams that featured in the 2026 Men\u2019s T20 World Cup but did not secure automatic qualification for 2028 will advance directly to the Global Qualifier.
\nThe remaining eight places in the Global Qualifier will be filled through regional qualification, with two teams each qualifying from Africa, Asia and Europe, and one team each from the Americas and East Asia-Pacific.
\nThe highest-placed team from each region at the Global Qualifier, together with the next three highest-placed teams overall, will qualify for the 2028 ICC Men\u2019s T20 World Cup, subject to minimum performance criteria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI The International Cricket Council (ICC) has approved major changes to the formats of its flagship men\u2019s global tournaments, introducing new competition structures for the ICC Men\u2019s Cricket World Cup and the ICC Men\u2019s T20 World Cup in a bid to increase competitiveness and ensure every match carries greater significance. The decisions were taken at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":100350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100373,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100362\/revisions\/100373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}