The ICC have announced the qualification pathway for the 2025 Champions Trophy which will be contested between eight teams in Pakistan.
The tournament with supposedly elite ODI teams has not been held since 2017, when Pakistan won the trophy by defeating India in the final at the Oval. After this tournament, the tournament was abolished and one major tournament was established for each format: T20 World Cup, ODI World Cup and World Test Championship. However, it was confirmed in 2021 that the Champions Trophy will be reinstated in his 2024-31 international cycle, with tournaments scheduled for his 2025 and his 2029.
The ICC announcement confirms that only teams currently participating in the 2023 Men’s World Cup will qualify for the 2025 Champions Trophy. Teams that finish in the top seven during the round-robin stage, along with hosts Pakistan, will automatically qualify for the tournament two years later.
This means that the bottom two teams will not qualify regardless of the outcome of the ODI matches after the World Cup. England and Bangladesh are likely to be eliminated from the qualifiers as the Netherlands won against Bangladesh. This decision was only announced midway through the group stage of this tournament, so it is likely that a place in the semi-finals will be decided, and it will add an extra element to the remaining games.
This qualification system means that West Indies, who missed out on qualifying for the 2023 World Cup, won’t even get a chance to qualify for the 2025 Champions Trophy. West Indies won the tournament in England in 2004 and finished runners-up in the next tournament, but failed to qualify in the previous tournament in 2017. Other full members Ireland and Zimbabwe are also excluded.
Some international organizations were reportedly unaware that Champions Trophy qualification would be at stake during the World Cup. However, Shakib Al Hasan addressed the issue in the post-match press conference after Bangladesh’s loss to the Netherlands in Mumbai, hinting that he was aware of the situation. “Let’s say you have to finish in the top eight to qualify for the Champions Trophy,” he said. “He still has three games left at this point.”
However, other countries appear to have been less informed, with some boards of the countries that missed out on qualifying for the 2023 World Cup also reportedly in the dark.
Under the previous system, teams qualified for the tournament by their position in the Men’s ODI ICC Rankings. The top seven teams in the rankings by the deadline will qualify for the tournament along with the host nation. Until the 2019 edition, ODI rankings also determined qualification for the Men’s World Cup.
The 2025 edition is scheduled to take place from February to March, and the first stage of the tournament will see teams divided into two groups of four, with semi-finals and a final.
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