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Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
THE International Cricket Council on Monday officially launched the inaugural ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League, which gets underway on Thursday when world 50-over champions England face Ireland in Southampton.
Introduced to bring context to One Day International (ODI) cricket, the Super League will determine qualification for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 with the top seven teams automatically booking their spot at the event in India.
Featuring 13 teams, the 12 ICC Full Members and the Netherlands, who qualified by winning the ICC World Cricket Super League 2015-17, the Super League will see each side play four home and four away three match series.
Zimbabwe are part of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League, with the Chevrons meant to face Australia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Ireland away while their home fixtures are against India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh as well as Netherlands. The clashes with Australia and India have already been postponed because of the coronavirus.
Commenting on the launch, Geoff Allardice, ICC general manager cricket operations said, “We are delighted to get the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League underway with World Cup winners England against Ireland.
“The league will bring relevance and context to ODI cricket over the next three years, as qualification for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 is at stake. The Super League gives cricket fans around the world even more reasons to watch as the drama of league cricket unfolds.”
Dates for the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup were recently changed because of disruptions to international cricket brought about by Covid-19. Allardice feels that the adjustment of dates affords ICC an opportunity to reschedule fixtures not played because of Covid-19.
“The decision last week to move the World Cup back to late 2023 gives us more time to schedule any games lost due to Covid-19 and preserve the integrity of the qualification process, meaning it will be decided on the field of play, which is important,’’ he said.
Eoin Morgan, the England World Cup winning captain is excited by his team’s return to action in white ball cricket and is mindful of the fact that it will not be same as when they won the World Cup seeing that fans are not allowed to watch matches from the stadiums at the moment.
“We’re looking forward to playing cricket again and to the ICC Men’s World Cup Super League. Given the situation, it will be quite different to the last time we played at home, when we lifted the World Cup at Lord’s, but it’s nice to be starting our journey for the next edition of the tournament,’’ Morgan said.
Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie said: “It’s a privilege to be playing in the inaugural series of the ICC Men’s World Cup Super League. It is obviously going to be a huge challenge taking on the team that won the World Cup just a year ago but we have prepared well and have taken confidence from our form over the early months of 2020.”
The ICC will provide further updates on the Super League and its fixtures will be shared in the course of time after a discussion with member boards.
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