All tournaments over the next cycle starting in 2023 will be selected by the board
Hosts for ICC events will not be determined through an open bidding process, and instead will be selected by its board. In what amounts effectively to a u-turn, the ICC said after a board meeting on Tuesday that a process for selecting hosts for all of its events in the next rights cycle from 2023-2031 had been approved and would begin this month.
How that process will work was not revealed, but the decision to roll back from inviting bids from all members will please a number of boards who had been opposed to it, including the BCCI and ECB. All men’s, women’s and Under-19 events in the next cycle will be selected rather than bid for. The process of selecting hosts for men’s events in the cycle – which now includes the return of the Champions Trophy and an expanded 50-over World Cup and T20 World Cup – will begin this month, with all events allocated a host by September.
The hosting process for women’s and U-19 events will commence in November and, the ICC said, “will be an opportunity to engage with a wider range of Members including first-time hosts.”
That is the argument that has now been accepted by the ICC. “The revised approach to selecting hosts for our events will give us much more flexibility to grow the game and engage new fans,” the ICC’s acting chief executive Geoff Allardice said. “There is a smaller pool of countries with the infrastructure needed to host our senior Men’s events which narrows the selection process. Additionally, many of our Members expressed interest in hosting Women’s and U19 events which gives us a great opportunity to stage events in established and emerging cricket nations.”
As well as the disagreement over the process of finding a host the boards of India, England and Australia were opposed to including an extra event in the new eight-year cycle, arguing that more attention needed to be paid to developing bilateral cricket. That extra event – in the guise of a return of the Champions Trophy – was reconfirmed at Tuesday’s meeting.