The Future of the 50 Overs Cricket World Cup

Surely Ireland was able to upset England and Canada gave Pakistan a scare, but that was more of an exception than the norm, while associate members like Kenya, the Netherlands and Canada have been hammered in some of their games.

The ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat has stated that the 2015 Cricket World Cup would be a 10 instead of 14 team event, but the ICC has so far not decided on the format and qualification process. There are 10 test playing nations who currently automatically qualify for the 50 over version of the Cricket World Cup.

Ten team affair

Lorgat told cricinfo.com, "Somewhere we have to make the cut-off. Who knows what that would be yet - eight or nine or seven. The cut-off means that teams ranked higher than the cut-off directly get into the World Cup. Whoever is left out goes into a qualifier.

"That's where the associates get the opportunity. They (the associates) have obviously been disappointed (by a 10 team World Cup) because the more teams you make, the more teams can play, but that's not top competition," Lorgat added.

One-day international league

Nothing is final yet, but the ICC will decide in a meeting in May the new structure of the 2015 World Cup and its qualifiers. A new feature will be the One-Day International league, which will determine the rankings of member nations in the 50 over games. The ODI league will be played over a three year cycle with member nations having to face each other once a year either home or away. And in the fourth year the Cricket World Cup will be held.

The point that the ICC will have to decide on will be how many teams qualify for the tournament proper plus how the qualifiers will be held and with how many teams. But whether or not these ODI league plans will work out depends on the international calendar, which is already more then full.

Author: Arunava Chaudhuri
Editor: Sarah Berning