Sports
The pathway for qualifying for the 2027 World Cup has been revealed
The pathway for qualifying for the 2027 World Cup has been revealed
A few days before the inaugural CWC League 2 tri-series of the current cycle begins, the ICC has released additional information regarding the modifications to the qualification process for the 2027 ODI World Cup, which will be hosted by Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
34 additional teams will compete in qualifying for the 14-team tournament, in addition to South Africa and Zimbabwe, who are automatically qualified as Full Member hosts. The Netherlands has been demoted to Associate competition due to the cancellation of the CWC Super League, as was widely anticipated. Only ICC Full Members are now able to qualify directly through the ODI ranking table. Together with South Africa and Zimbabwe, the top eight full members on the ODI table at the yet-to-be-determined cut-off date will receive direct qualification, while the top two Associates will join the top-ranked players at the CWC Qualifier. There will now be four spots available at the qualifier instead of two due to the World Cup’s expansion from 10 to 14 teams.
Starting next week in Kuala Lumpur, the inaugural CWC Challenge Playoff will provide four new teams the opportunity to secure a spot in the CWC Challenge League, which is the lowest rung of the qualification ladder. Eight teams will compete in a one-off tournament to determine which four will return or be promoted to the third-tier List A competition for the upcoming cycle. Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, and Italy—all of whom qualified through the T20 rankings—will face the four lowest-finishing teams from the previous Challenge League: Italy, Malaysia, Vanuatu, and Bermuda.
The Challenge League is still in place and consists of two six-team competitions that run concurrently. During the cycle, each group competes in three round-robin tournaments. A noteworthy distinction from the previous cycle is that the 2026 CWC Qualifier Playoff will feature the top two teams from each group, instead of just the winners of each group. As a result, the Qualifier Playoff will now include eight teams instead of just six, with the top four Challenge League teams competing against the bottom four teams from Conference League 2.
However, it is currently unknown if all four of these League 2 teams could face relegation during the qualifying playoffs. In the previous edition, the only teams that faced elimination to the Challenge Leagues were the bottom two teams from League 2, and only Papua New Guinea was eliminated to make room for Canada. It’s possible that up to four Challenge League teams will be able to advance to League 2 and obtain ODI status as a result of the two additional teams they have in the Qualifier Playoff.
For the upcoming cycle, CWC League 2 will continue to follow essentially the same format, consisting of three consecutive series of six matches, with each team playing its opponents at home, away, and on neutral ground. Despite Namibia having to go through qualifying even though they co-hosted the World Cup, and the Netherlands being relegated from the Super League, the second-tier ODI League is now an eight-team competition. As a result, the triple round-robin is no longer flawless. Each team will play four opponents six times in total and three opponents in just four games, with one home, one away, and one neutral set of matches skipped.
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While the bottom four go to the Qualifier Playoff, where at least two and possibly all four could face relegation to the Challenge League and loss of ODI status, the top four finishers in League 2 will once again advance directly to the World Cup Qualifier and will therefore be guaranteed ODI status for the upcoming cycle.
Tomorrow is the opening match of the first League 2 trilateral series in Kathmandu, where the hosts, Nepal, will play Namibia as the curtain raiser and then the Netherlands two days later.
