Babar Azam (left) and India’s Virat Kohli take a stroll on the pitch earlier than the beginning of the ICC males’s T20 World Cup cricket match on the Dubai Worldwide Cricket Stadium on October 24, 2021. — Reuters
The Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC) introduced on Wednesday a revamped format for the lads’s 2027 one-day worldwide World Cup that might result in a further fixture between arch-rivals Pakistan and India.
Whereas subsequent yr’s version in southern Africa stays a 14-team competitors, the three lowest-ranked qualifiers will now participate in a preliminary spherical with simply one in all them progressing to a 12-strong fundamental group stage.
That may now characteristic simply two swimming pools of six, with a brand new ‘tremendous seven’ stage changing the earlier ‘tremendous six’ round-robin.
Considerably, there might be no quarter-finals with the match denied the additional jeopardy and curiosity that comes with an additional spherical of clear-cut knockout matches.
An extra workforce within the round-robin section, nevertheless, will increase the prospects of an additional match between India and Pakistan.
The fervour for cricket within the sub-continent, which in flip generates big broadcast rights and industrial revenues for the ICC, makes a match between India and Pakistan probably the most profitable within the sport.
However India and Pakistan now not meet exterior of ICC occasions, with political tensions between the bordering nations that means they’re successfully barred by their very own governments from going through one another.
The final bilateral sequence India performed in Pakistan was in 2006 (Take a look at and ODI sequence).
In an announcement, the ICC insisted the brand new World Cup construction “creates greater context, competitiveness and consequence during the event.”
One other change accredited on the ICC’s current board assembly in Edinburgh will see the following males’s T20 World Cup in 2028 stay a 20-team competitors, however with 10 sides qualifying from the group stage slightly than eight.
The 2 best-performing groups within the ‘Tremendous 10’ will mechanically safe a semi-final spot, with a brand new eliminator stage to determine their opponents.
