New global tournament planned by ICC for 2023-2031 cycle

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is planning to hold a T20 Champions Cup in the 2023-31 cycle.

A total of 48 matches will be played in the tournament where top ten teams will compete.

As per ICC’s proposal, there would be a T20 Champions Cup in 2024 and 2028 and an ODI Champions Cup in 2025 and 2029, alongside the T20 World Cups in 2026 and 2030, and the ODI World Cups in 2027 and 2031.

The ODI Champions Cup can be deemed as the Champions Trophy but the T20 Champions Cup will be the like of a World Cup.

According to the new ICC proposal there will now be a gap of four years between the T20 World Cups as well. After the T20 World Cup 2021, the next two T20 World Cups will be held in 2026 and 2030 respectively.

The subsequent reason behind the idea of implementing new global events is to increase revenue generation that can be used for the development of the game in associate nations.

The new proposal might not be taken well by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket Australia and England and Wales Cricket Board as they earlier advocated for extend the extension of bilateral arrangement between countries to increase respective board’s revenue.

Implementation of the above mentioned events by ICC will significantly curtail down the prospect of bilateral series.

The apex cricketing council is also planning to hold a Champions Cup for both T20 and 50-over matches for women’s game.

Under the terms set out by the ICC for bidding, the host nation for each event would retain ticketing, hospitality, and catering revenues, while the ICC would retain all other commercial and broadcast rights to each event.

It is also reported that the ICC has been planning to reduce the length of Test matches from five days to four so that they could create more space in the calendar for white ball cricket. The idea has, however, not been cordially taken by present and former cricketers around the world.