ICC approves major changes to ODI and T20 World Cup formats

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has approved significant changes to the formats of the 2027 ODI World Cup and 2028 T20 World Cup to make cricket more exciting.

According to the announcement made after the ICC’s Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh, both major global tournaments will be played under a new format in which teams will have to face additional challenges to reach the knockout stage.

New format of the 2027 ODI World Cup

14 teams will participate in the 2027 ODI World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, but now a new three-stage system has been introduced to reach the final.

The bottom three teams out of the 14 teams that qualified in the first stage will play a round-robin super series, the winner of which will make it to the next stage.

In the second phase, the remaining 12 teams will be divided into two groups of six teams each, where matches will be played in a round-robin format in each group. The top three teams from both groups and the next best placed team will advance to the Super 7 stage.

In the third phase, i.e. Super 7, seven teams will play against each other, after which the top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals. The semi-finals and final will be played according to the old format.

New format in T20 World Cup 2028 too

Only 20 teams will participate in the T20 World Cup 2028, which will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, but the format has been changed to make the second phase of the tournament more interesting.

In the group stage, the 20 teams will be divided into five groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the Super 10 stage.

There will be two groups of five teams each in the Super 10 stage. The top-placed team from each group will advance directly to the semi-finals.

The remaining two semi-finalists will be decided through a new eliminator stage where the second-placed team from each group will play the third-placed team from the opposing group. The winners of these matches will advance to the semi-finals.

According to the ICC, the new formats are aimed at making global events more exciting, providing more opportunities for emerging teams and keeping the competition exciting until the final stage.