Pakistan will be remembered as last title holders of the Champions Trophy

As decided in the five-day-board meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Kolkata, the Champions Trophy will now no longer be a 50-over-tournament but a full-fledged World T20 event. For years, the relevance and context of the tournament was questioned, hence, ICC decided to take a call on that and instead slot back-to-back World T20s.

ICC Chief Executive Dave Richardson said the global body has “unanimously agreed” that the 2021 meet in India would now be a 16-team event in the shortest format. However, with this new development, the questions now loom on the need to have a World T2o in less than a year’s gap as the World T20 in Australia was already planned for 2020.

This would also mean that reigning champions Pakistan will not be defending the Champions Trophy anymore. Pakistan will now forever be remembered as the last title holders of the Champions Trophy. The move comes as a big shock as this would not only mean repetition for the fans but also when it comes to the financial side of a multi-nation event, it would cost the BCCI heavily. The move did not have the backing of BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry initially, as reported by News 18.

However, even though this move could cost BCCI up to $30 million, the board representative Chaudhary also voted in favour of the change after the initial opposition to the move. As things stand now, the World T20 in 2020 will be held in Australia and the World T20 in 2021 will be held in India.

T20 galore

Apart from this, another news that would delight T20 fans all over the world is the decision to grant T20I status to all 104 ICC members. The ICC gave the green light to all T20 matches between members being awarded international status along with a plan to introduce global rankings in the format.

The move across both men’s and women’s cricket is part of the wider strategic aim of using the T20 format to globalize the game. New minimum standards will be introduced and will be aimed to make it as easy as possible for members to play international cricket in a sustainable and affordable way.

All member women’s teams will be awarded T20I status on 1 July 2018, whilst all member men’s teams will be awarded T20I status on 1 January 2019 following the cut-off point for qualification to the ICC World T20 2020. Rankings for women’s and men’s cricket will be introduced in October 2018 and May 2019 respectively.

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