The road to 2020 World T20 to begin in Argentina

With the first Sub-Regional Qualifier getting underway in Buenos Aires, the ICC today revealed the broad outline of the global qualifying structure for the 2020 World T20, to be held in Australia in two years' time.

The Americas WT20 Sub-Regional Qualifier (Group B), which is currently being contested by Argentina, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, is the first of 12 such qualifiers scheduled to be held in the run-up to the tournament, which will see some 61 countries competing to reach one of five regional finals, making this one of the most inclusive qualification pathways yet seen for an ICC event.

As well as the current event in Buenos Aires, a second Americas sub-regional competition is slated to be held in Los Angeles later in the year. Kuwait will be the venue for the first of two six-team Asian sub-regionals in April, while the Philippines and Fiji have been chosen to host the two four-team East Asia Pacific region sub-qualifiers. The venues for the European and African Sub-regionals have not yet been confirmed, but it is known that both regions will host 3 such tournaments later this year, with 33 countries taking part.

From these sub-regional competitions, a total of 25 teams will progress to regional finals, one for each of the ICC's five regions, to be held over the course of 2019. Precisely how many teams progress from each sub-regional has not been made known, however.

From these finals a total of seven teams will progress to the Global Qualifier, where they will be joined by the six teams that qualified for the 2016 edition of the WT20 but fall outside the top ten of the T20I rankings at the end of this year (Scotland, Zimbabwe, the Netherlands Hong Kong, Oman and Ireland on current standings), with an additional berth reserved for the as-yet-unannounced hosts. There will be six qualifying spots to be won at the 14-team tournament, with top teams advancing to the "First Round" of the WT20 itself.

With a total of 65 Associates and 2 Full Members taking part, the announcement heralds one of the most inclusive qualification structures yet seen for a major ICC event. ICC Development manager Will Greenwright hinted that there would be more to come, saying: "The ICC is committed to providing more competitive opportunities as part of our significant investment into the growth of cricket ... This is just one of a number of improvements to our international competition structures for Associate Members that we are working on and will be announcing this year."