ICC is planning to propose the T20 Champions Cup in the cricket calendar between 2023-2031, a report in ESPN Cricinfo said. ICC Chief Manu Shawney proposed this move in a bid to provide consistent cash flow from events revenue to the game’s smaller countries. The tournament would have the top ten teams in the world play 48 matches. This is the same number of games which was played during last year’s 50-over World Cup. While 50-over Champions Cup will have six teams playing 16 matches. As per the ICC’s proposal, there would be a T20 Champions Cup in 2024 and 2028 and an ODI Champions Cup in 2025 and 2029, alongside the T20 World Cups in 2026 and 2030, and the ODI World Cups in 2027 and 2031.
T20 Champions Cup: The Bigger Picture
With the game of cricket revolutionising almost every day, this idea proposed by the ICC aims at increasing the increase the revenue by making the game reach in remote areas of the world and even to the game’s smaller countries. This will also be an opportunity to participate in ICC events more regularly and improve on their skills levels in the process. However, the BCCI, ECB and the ACB has withdrawn their interest from the proposal saying that it will take away time for bilateral series between the teams which is a source of significant revenue for the respective countries.
“We’ve got a responsibility as one of the leading countries to make the ICC strong and the countries who are part of the ICC. But we’ve also got to balance that with our own requirements around bilateral cricket,” the Cricket Australia chairman Earl Eddings said.
“One of the challenges we have is Australia relies more on bilateral cricket than the ICC, where for a lot of countries it is the other way round. So just trying to find the balance” he further added.
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The board members have argued saying that the idea takes out significant days from bilateral cricket series and also the World Test Championship, the final of which is scheduled to be played at Lord’s in June 2021. With BCCI eyeing to expand the horizon of IPL in the future, the proposed plan might also interfere in that as well.
Meanwhile, ICC’s full-member nations have been given a deadline until March 15 to submit expressions of interest to bid for global events in the 2023-2031 cycle.
ICC’s Proposed Plan to Delay Cricket’s Entry into Olympics
Talks about the ICC helping cricket to make an entry into the Olympics has been standing for long. However, ICC’s proposed plan, the T20 Champions Cup will also delay cricket’s entry into the Olympics. MCC’s World Cricket Committee chairman Mike Gatting, last year said that the ICC Chief Executive said that cricket might get into the Olympics in 2028, which will host one of the T20 Champions Cup editions.
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T20 Champions Cup: Proposed Program for Women
Proposed Champions Cup for both 20 and 50 over matches has also been proposed for women by the ICC as well. There will be a total of six teams and 16 matches in the women’s program. Moreover, as per ICC’s terms and conditions, the host nation will bare the expenses for ticketing, hospitality and catering revenues while the ICC will pay for all other commercial and broadcast rights to each event.