T20 Champions Cup, ODI Champions Cup: New tournaments part of ICC events for 2023-2031
The 50-over Champions Cup will be a brief event which will be extremely similar to the Champions Trophy and will see just six teams in 16 games.
A T20 Champions Cup that would see the top 10 teams of the world fight it out across 48 matches - the same number as last year's 50-over World Cup - will be included in the ICC's proposed suite of tournaments for the 2023 to 2031 broadcast rights cycle. As per ESPNCricinfo, the proposal, which was first tabled to the ICC Board in October last year and has been the subject of plenty of debates and deliberations between boards and the ICC since, there would be a T20 Champions Cup which will be held in 2024 and 2028. There will also be an ODI Champions Cup in 2025 and 2029, alongside the T20 World Cups in 2026 and 2030. There will be the ODI World Cups in 2027 and 2031.
Explaining the formats
The 50-over Champions Cup will be a brief event that will be extremely similar to the Champions Trophy and will see just six teams in 16 games. While the T20 Champions Cup has been designed to another World Cup as it will see 48 matches being played.
"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 told ESPNCricinfo last year. "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.
"You've got more T20 competitions spreading around the world, you've got the burgeoning IPL and you've got our bilateral cricket. More importantly, what does that mean to the players and from a player welfare perspective. So you've got all these challenges to try to work through. I think there's a solution there, I don't know what it is yet, but we'll keep talking to the ICC and other countries to find a way to one, maximise the opportunities for the ICC and its members but also look after the needs of bilateral cricket and most importantly protect the sanctity of Test cricket."
