The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced a revamp of the format of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which will be first used in the 2028 edition of the tournament. The mega event is scheduled to take place in October-November and will be co-hosted by Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand and Australia.
While the tournament will remain a 20-team tournament, there will now be four rounds. Moreover, the first round will now see four teams divided into five groups. Earlier, five groups were divided into four groups. However, like the old format, the top two teams from each group. This means that the second round will now have 10 teams instead of eight. While previously, a ‘Super 8’ was held, now a ‘Super 10’ will be held.
The 10 teams will be divided into five groups of two each. However, a new IPL playoff-like system will be introduced before the knockouts to determine the semi-finalists. While the top team in both groups will advance to the last four, the second and third teams from both groups will play an eliminator (team 2 in group A faces team 3 in group B, and team 2 in group B faces team 3 in group A). The winners of both matches will play the semi-finals alongside the group winners.
Interestingly, the new format, like the old one, will also have 55 matches.
Old Format was New Format
“This promises to expand the representation of cricket’s emerging nations in the Super 10 stage while also delivering higher competitive standards. The addition of ‘eliminators’, where the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams from groups in the Super 10 stage compete against each other for spots in the semi-finals, also then adds significant consequence to the closing matches of the Super 10 stage,” said the ICC in a statement to explain the reason behind the change.
The ICC has also introduced a change in the qualification format for the T20 World Cup, as a global qualifier will be held to determine who plays in the event, and the qualifying teams will not be selected from the regional qualifiers.
