The International Cricket Council has scrapped the proposed bidding process for allocation of hosting rights of global events. The host nations for the ICC events between the 2023-2031 cycle will now be picked by the ICC board.
The ICC in 2019 had decided to implement the bidding process for allocation of global events. The ICC in February last year had also asked all member nations to tender expressions of interest for hosting the global events.
The decision had not gone down well with a majority of the ICC full members. England and the Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia reportedly wanted the biggest cricket events to be staged in cricket’s biggest markets.
The ICC, according to ESPNCricinfo, has reportedly accepted the argument. 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 cricket publication has quoted ICC acting chief executive Geoff Allardice as saying.
“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.”
The new selection process may still allocation the big events to smaller cricketing nations.
The ICC has, however, not accepted the objection of the ‘Big Three’ for adding one more tournament to ICC’s eight-year event cycle. As reported earlier, the ICC has restored the Champions Trophy as the proposed additional event.
