ICC announces qualification process for 2022 T20 World Cup
The International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced the qualification process for the 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup that is set to take place in Australia. The tournament is scheduled to place in the months of October and November in 2022.
In a statement, the ICC said the 15 spots will be decided through a four-step qualifying process, which will starts in April of 2021. 11 regional qualification tournaments across five regions were rescheduled to 2021 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
" With the return of cricket in early 2021, we will see 86 different teams with the opportunity to fill the 15 World Cup spots - with hosts Australia already securing one - over a 13-month qualification campaign," the ICC announced in a statement.
The ICC added that teams like Hungary, Romania and Serbia will be competing in the qualification process for the first time. Finland will also be hosting an ICC event for the very first time.
"For the first time ever, Hungary, Romania and Serbia will be competing for Men's T20 World Cup qualification and Finland will play host to an ICC event for the very first time," stated the ICC. "In a festival of cricket, it will also be the first time Japan will host a Men's T20 World Cup qualifier on the back of the U-19 Men's Cricket World Cup qualifier they will host two weeks prior."
Africa and Europe regions set to have sub-regional qualifiers
The ICC mentioned that there will be 67 associate members taking part at the regional level. Owing to the depth of strength in the African and European regions, they will now have a sub-regional qualifier before the final qualifier for the respective region.
The Africa, Americas, EAP (East Asia-Pacific) and Europe regions will have one top-tier regional qualifier. Asia will have two qualifiers to determine which teams will progress into the two eight-teams global qualifiers.
The 16 available spots in the global qualifiers will be filled by one team each from Africa and EAP qualifiers respectively. They will be joined by the two teams from the America, Asia, and Europe qualifiers.
The eight remaining spots will be assumed by the bottom four teams of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021 alongside Nepal, UAE, Zimbabwe and Singapore (based on their T20I rankings).
Thus, the four teams from the two global qualifiers alongside hosts Australia and the 11 automatically qualified teams will make up the 16-team event.
" We are delighted to announce qualification for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in Australia in 2022. The pathway will culminate in the eighth Men's T20 World Cup which will be held in Australia. In addition, a remarkable 225 Men's T20 internationals are scheduled to be played," said Chris Tetley, the ICC Head of Events.
The ICC Men's T20 World Cup in 2020, which was supposed to be held in Australia, was postponed to 2022 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next edition of the tournament is set to be held in India in 2021.