86 different teams will have the opportunity to bag the 15 available spots at the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia as per the qualification pathway announced by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday (December 14).
Apart from hosts Australia, the rest of the participants for the 16-team tournament will be decided via a four-step qualifying process that begins in April 2021.
Read Also: ICC announces rescheduled qualification pathway for 2022 U-19 World Cup
As many as 11 regional qualification tournaments across five regions have been rescheduled by the cricket's world governing body for next year and these short but extremely crucial events will lead into the tournament proper the following year in October-November.
"For the first time ever Hungary, Romania and Serbia will be competing for Men’s T20 World Cup qualification and Finland will play host to an ICC event for the very first time," the ICC informed via a statement.
"In a festival of cricket it will also be the first time that Japan will host a Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier, on the back of the U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier they will host two weeks before."
"At regional level, there will be 67 Associate Members taking part. Due to the depth of strength within Africa and Europe, both regions have sub regional qualifiers feeding into a final qualifier for the region. Africa, Americas, EAP and Europe will have one top tier regional qualifier and Asia will have A and B to determine which teams will progress into the two eight-team global qualifiers."
"The 16 available spots in the Global Qualifiers will be filled by one team each from the Africa and EAP Qualifier respectively. They will be joined by two teams each from the Americas and Europe qualifiers. Finally, Asia which has a Qualifier A and B will see one team from each event make up the eight spots from regional qualification."
The remaining eight spots will be given to the bottom four teams at the 2021 edition of the T20 World Cup in India plus Nepal, Singapore, UAE and Zimbabwe, who have gained direct entry based on the rankings.
The teams finishing top 4 at the global qualifier will join Australia and 11 automatic qualifiers from the 2021 World Cup in the 2022 edition.
(With PTI inputs)
