Following weekend board meetings, cricket’s global governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), has announced sweeping structural changes to two of men’s cricket’s most prestigious international tournaments, introducing a new preliminary round to the 2027 50-over World Cup and redesigning the playoff pathway for the 2028 Twenty20 World Cup.
In an official statement, the ICC framed the adjustments as a deliberate push to deliver more high-stakes competitive matches, raise overall playing standards, solidify the competitive hierarchy of top-tier international cricket, and create a more engaging experience for both participating players and global audiences.
The traditional 50-over ODI World Cup, held on a four-year cycle, most recently wrapped up in 2023 in India, where Australia claimed its sixth title by defeating the host nation in a tightly contested 10-team final. The 2027 edition will break recent precedent with an expanded 14-team field, co-hosted across three southern African nations: South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia.
Under the new format rolled out by the ICC, the 2027 tournament will kick off with a new opening phase dubbed the “Super Series”. The three teams that secure the 12th, 13th, and 14th qualifying positions will compete in this preliminary round, with only one winner advancing to the main 12-team group stage, joining the 11 highest-ranked automatic qualifiers.
The main group stage will split 12 teams into two groups of six. After round-robin play, the top three teams from each group, plus the highest-performing fourth-place team across both groups, will progress to the newly created Super 7 stage. This phase will use a single round-robin structure where every team faces each of the other six competitors once. The top four teams on the Super 7 standings will advance to the knockout semifinals, with the bracket pairing the first-ranked side against fourth, and second against third.
“This structure has been designed to strengthen the competitive narrative across every stage of the event,” the ICC noted in its breakdown of the new format.
For the 2028 T20 World Cup, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the ICC has reworked the tournament’s group and playoff structure from previous editions. The 20-team tournament will retain its total size, but rearrange the initial group stage layout: instead of four groups of five, teams will be split into five groups of four for the opening round, with the top finisher from each group advancing to the next round.
The second phase, renamed the Super 10, will split the 10 advancing teams into two groups of five for round-robin play. Unlike previous T20 World Cup formats where the top two from each second-phase group advanced directly to the semifinals, the 2028 edition introduces a new eliminator round to fill out the final four. The winner of each Super 10 group will earn an automatic semifinal spot. The second-place team from each group will then face the third-place team from the opposite Super 10 group in knockout eliminators, with the two winners claiming the remaining two semifinal positions.
Twelve teams have already secured their place in the 2028 tournament based on results from the 2024 T20 World Cup and ICC Men’s T20 team rankings: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, and Zimbabwe. Eight remaining spots will be awarded via a 16-team global qualifier tournament, with the U.S., Canada, Italy, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates already guaranteed automatic entry into that qualifier, while Scotland has earned direct placement into the European regional final.