MUMBAI: Well what do you know? The International Cricket Council’s resolution to stage “one men’s ICC event year” for its next event cycle from 2023 to 2031, initially proposed in October 2019, has been endorsed by the ICC board WITHOUT ACRIMONY.
The ICC board’s announcement, which came on Tuesday, confirmed the schedule of ICC events from 2024-2031 with both the Men’s Cricket World Cup and Men’s T20 World Cup to be expanded and a Men’s Champions Trophy to be re-introduced.
So whatever happened to all the fire and brimstone predictions the Indian media had gone to town over, with dark declarations that the BCCI would “vehemently oppose” any such proposal? That aside, what is clear is that with the Champions Trophy restored to the ICC calendar, there WILL again be one global white-ball event every year, which will certainly have ramifications on the current cricket ecosystem.
First and foremost, ICC’s new itinerary will perforce see a drastic reduction in bilateral international cricket played in India. Why? Because 30 to 45 days is what will be reduced as far as BCCI’s home season time frame is concerned.
The even bigger question though is around the impact ICC’s freshly minted schedule of events could potentially have on BCCI’s plans to expand the Indian Premier League into a 10-team affair.
While there has been no public word on the matter, seen from this perch, the likely quid pro quo the BCCI has extracted from cricket’s world governing body to sign on to the ICC events schedule is that the expanded window it requires to host a ten-team IPL has been accommodated.
As per SportzPower’s understanding, a ten-team IPL would require the addition of at least three more weeks to the existing seven-to-eight-week window that world cricket’s richest annual event currently requires. And the IPL will get those three more weeks. That is the deal maker is how SportzPower calls it.
ICC events roster – 2024 to 2031
Year Men’s Event (Teams/Games)
2024 T20 World Cup (20/55)
2025 Champions Trophy (8/15)
World Test C’ship Final (2/1)
2026 T20 World Cup (20/55)
2027 Cricket WC (14/54)
World Test C’ship Final (2/1)
2028 T20 World Cup (20/55)
2029 Champions Trophy (8/15)
World Test C’ship Final (2/1)
2030 T20 World Cup (20/55)
2031 Cricket World Cup (14/54)
World Test C’ship Final (2/1)
Related Report
ICC expands global events roster, CT back in picture
