According to the recent Telegraph.co.uk reports, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is planning to add more teams in the future Men’s T20 World Cup.
The ICC is now focusing on expanding the global tournament to gain more popularity. The other sports like football, basketball is growing up the worldwide popularity by adding more teams in the top tournaments. So, the ICC is considering expanding the future Men’s T20 World Cup from 16 to 20 teams’ competition.
At present, the ICC is setting up the international cricket calendar between 2023 and 2031. While they are trying to build up a better cricket structure for this period, the T20 World Cup expansion is a part of this planning.
The ICC World T20 began in 2007 where 12 teams participated. Later, the same number of teams participated in the 2009, 2010 and 2012 editions. From 2014, this global T20 competition is running with 16 teams. While the same number of teams engaged in the 2016 edition, it will be continued in 2020 and 2021 (most likely) editions respectively.
ICC wants to add four more teams in the future T20 World Cup
In the new FTP schedule of 2023-2031, we will get the first ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2024. ICC wants to add four more teams in this competition which mean that the Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 can run with 20 teams. The global cricket governing body believes that it will put them a better position in global media right markets as there will be a chance of higher viewership for this tournament.
There are two possibilities to handle the 20-team T20 World Cup. They can continue the present two-tier format where the lower-ranked teams will meet in the qualifiers round, and the top teams among these will advance for the main group stages of the tournament.
The other one is setting up four different groups with five teams each. In this case, the top teams in the final points table of each group will qualify for the knockout stages.