The top seven teams at the completion of the league stage of the present ODI World Cup in India, together with hosts Pakistan, will qualify for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.
An ICC spokesman verified to ESPNcricinfo that the ICC Board authorized the qualification procedure for the 2025 Champions Trophy in 2021, when the competition was reinstated as one of eight men’s global championships to be staged in the 2024-31 cycle.
A few boards have expressed surprise about a recent development. These boards, representing teams both in India and those who didn’t make it to the ODI World Cup, confessed to ESPNcricinfo that they didn’t know spots for the 2025 Champions Trophy were up for grabs in this tournament.
Currently, Bangladesh and England are sitting at positions 9 and 10 on the ODI World Cup points table, so they’re not quite making the cut for the top seven who will qualify for the Champions Trophy. This top seven will be joining host country, Pakistan.
This also implies that other Full-Member countries such as the West Indies, Zimbabwe, and Ireland won’t even get a chance to qualify for the tournament. This is because they didn’t make it to the 2023 ODI World Cup.
The surprise and disappointment of some boards over the Champions Trophy qualification process
The ICC announced many worldwide tournaments for both men and women in the next cycle (2024-31) in November 2021, including two editions of the Champions Trophy in 2025 and 2029. The ICC stated in a media statement that the Champions Trophy will be an eight-team event, with the tournament structure “following previous editions with two groups of four, semi-finals, and final.”
The top eight teams in the ODI standings at a predetermined cut-off date qualified for the Champions Trophy in 2013 and 2017. It is thought that the decision to have the top seven teams in this World Cup qualify for the 2025 Champions Trophy was first accepted by the ICC’s chief executives group, and then supported by the ICC board.
One Full Member board verified that at the 2021 ICC meetings, the qualifying paths for all tournaments were considered and agreed. The qualification process for the 2027 men’s ODI World Cup, a 14-team tournament co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, is as follows: the two Full Member hosts – South Africa and Zimbabwe – plus the eight highest-ranked teams as of March 31, 2027, and four remaining teams via global qualifier tournaments.
Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan emphasized qualifying for the 2025 Champions Trophy several times this week. With his team essentially out of the ODI World Cup semi-final competition, Shakib stressed the significance of finishing in the top eight. “I don’t mean the semi-final hope. “It is not a semi-final possibility,” Shakib remarked after Bangladesh was defeated by the Netherlands on Saturday. “At the very least, do a bit better. Assume you must be in the [top] ranking 8 to compete in the Champions Trophy. Keeping everything in mind, there are still three matches left.”
