After its board meeting, the International Cricket Council on Tuesday (June 1) announced the schedule of global events from 2024-2031.

As per the schedule, ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup and ICC Men’s T20 World Cup are set to be expanded and the Men’s Champions Trophy will be re-introduced.

“The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup will become a 14 team, 54 match event in 2027 and 2031, whilst the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will be expanded to a 20 team, 55 match event in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030. An eight team Champions Trophy will be hosted in 2025 and 2029. ICC World Test Championship Finals will be hosted in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031. The ICC Women’s event schedule has already been confirmed with the expansion of both the Cricket World Cup and T20 World Cup forming part of the ICC’s long-term commitment to growing the women’s game,” ICC said in a media release.

“The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup format will have two groups of seven, with the top three in each group progressing to a Super Six stage, followed by semi-finals and final. This is the same format that was used in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2003. The format of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will consist of four groups of five, with the top two from each group going through to a Super Eights stage, followed by the knockout stages of semi-finals and a final. The Champions Trophy will follow previous editions with two groups of four, semi-finals and final,” it added.

The governing further said that the hosts for the Men’s events will be decided in September following a selection process that will get underway this month. The hosting process for Women’s and U19 events will begin in November.

“Having the ICC event schedule confirmed through to 2031 is a significant step forward for cricket and will form the basis of our growth strategy for the next decade,” Geoff Allardice, ICC Acting Chief Executive, said in a statement.

“The revised approach to selecting hosts for our events will give us much more flexibility to grow the game and engage new fans. There is a smaller pool of countries with the infrastructure needed to host our senior Men’s events which narrows the selection process. Additionally, many of our Members expressed interest in hosting Women’s and U19 events which gives us a great opportunity to stage events in established and emerging cricket nations,” he further remarked.

(With ICC inputs)