Quote from: noormcs5 on Today at 04:11:29 AM

I agree with Sithara007 here. Every team should be given a chance to qualify and it is not fair to put the top six or five teams in the Olympics and ignore the rest. Even in different sports we have qualifying rounds from different continents and then the top teams participate in ICC and Fifa World cups etc.

The best thing would be to have a pre-qualifying round for all the countries and then the top five may be selected to participate. The host if it's a cricket playing nation would be auto selected, that's understandable.

The ICC has issued clarification regarding qualification for the cricket tournament in Olympics. A total of 6 teams would take part, and it will be decided as follows:

1. Host nation (x1): this time, it is going to be the United States of America (USA).
2. Top-ranked team from Oceania, Europe, Asia and Africa (x4). No quota for Americas, as USA has already qualified.
3. One spot to be deserved for the winner from the qualifier tournament (format not decided as of now). Top ranked team from West Indies will take part in the qualifier, with others not being given a chance to do so.

There are some other important announcements as well. The ICC is looking into the possibility of expanding the T20 World Cup to 32 teams. But this is a very long-term scenario. Also, for the 2027 ODI World Cup, in the group phase there will be two groups of 7 teams each.