The International Cricket Council (ICC) have confirmed that top seven teams from the Cricket World Cup 2023 group table, along with the hosts Pakistan will qualify for the Champions Trophy 2025.
“Qualification for the ICC Men’s Champions Trophy 2025 is the host (Pakistan) plus the top seven teams in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 table at the conclusion of the event. This was approved by the ICC Board in November 2021”, an ICC spokesperson was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo.
Notably, in November 2021, the ICC had said that the Champions Trophy would be an eight-team event and the tournament structure “will follow previous editions with two groups of four, semi-finals and final”.
The automatic qualification of top seven teams for the Champions Trophy also means teams like West Indies, Zimbabwe and Ireland will not play in the tournament, by virtue of not having made it to the 2023 ODI World Cup.
This also implies that defending ODI & T20 World Cup champions, England are in danger of missing out on Champions Trophy qualification due to their current standings in points table.
World Cup 2023 Points Table
With 4 losses in 5 games, England are languishing at the bottom of the points table with just 2 points. Meanwhile, Netherlands and Bangladesh are also in danger of missing out on the qualification as they are currently standing at 8th and 9th spot, respectively.
On Saturday, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan talked about the qualification scenario of Champions Trophy 2024 and spoke of the importance of finishing in the top eight. Suppose, you have to be in the [top] ranking 8 if you want to play in the Champions Trophy. So, there are still three matches left considering that in mind”, Shakib said after Bangladesh’s defeat against Netherlands.
