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Cricket World Cup qualification is the process a national cricket team goes through to qualify for the Cricket World Cup. The Cricket World Cup is a global event, and qualification is used to reduce the large field of participants from about 100 to 14. The current process is known as the World Cricket League. The qualification process can start as early as almost 6 years before the World Cup.
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Before each World Cup, ICC decides beforehand the number of spots that the associate and affiliate members are fighting for. The Test-playing nations (and sometimes in the past ODI-playing nations at the time) get an automatic berth in the World Cup. While the other teams have to qualify through a series tournaments to qualify for the World Cup Qualifier.
Qualifying tournaments for the World Cup Qualifier are held within the five ICC regional bodies (Africa, Americas, Asia, East Asia-Pacific, Europe), and are organized by their respective councils. The ICC Trophy, the first qualifying tournament, was held for the second world cup.
History
Since the second World Cup in 1979, qualifying tournaments have been held, the first being the ICC Trophy; later the process expanding with qualifying tournaments for the qualifier. The qualifying tournaments were contested as part of the ICC Trophy. The number of teams getting selected through the ICC Trophy changes from event to event. From 2007, the ICC World Cricket League replaced the past processes; from 2009, the ICC trophy will be known as the ICC World Cup Qualifier.
World Cricket League
The World Cricket League is a series of international one-day cricket tournaments for national teams without Test status, administered by the International Cricket Council. All Associate and Affiliate members of the ICC are able to qualify for the World Cup.The ICC World Cricket League have some steps (depending on the certain team) that all Associate and Affiliate members have to go through to be selected for the World Cup.
The ICC World Cup Qualifier is a tournament to decide the final qualification for the World Cup. 12 teams participated in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier and the top 4 teams qualified for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. But at the ICC Chief Executives' Committee meeting in September 2011, the ICC decided on a new qualifying format for the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The top two teams of the 2011–13 ICC World Cricket League Championship qualify directly. The remaining six teams join the third and fourth-placed teams of the 2011 ICC World Cricket League Division Two and the top two teams of the 2013 ICC World Cricket League Division Three in a 10-team World Cup Qualifier to decide the remaining two places.
Process summary in chronological order (2011-2014):
- 2011 ICC World Cricket League Division Two: 6 Teams – Top 2 were promoted to the 2011-2013 ICC World Cricket League Championship. The third and fourth-placed teams qualified for the 2014 Cricket World Cup Qualifier. The fifth and sixth-placed teams were relegated to the Division Three for 2013.
- 2011–13 ICC World Cricket League Championship: 8 Teams – Top 2 automatically qualified for the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The remaining six teams qualified for the 2014 Cricket World Cup Qualifier.
- 2013 ICC World Cricket League Division Three: 6 Teams – Top 2 were qualified for the 2014 Cricket World Cup Qualifier. The fifth and sixth-placed teams were relegated to the Division Four for 2014.
- 2014 Cricket World Cup Qualifier: 10 Teams – Top 2 qualified for the 2015 Cricket World Cup and the 2015–17 ICC World Cricket League Championship. The third and fourth-placed teams qualified for the 2015–17 ICC World Cricket League Championship. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth-placed teams remained in the Division Two for 2015. The ninth and tenth-placed teams were relegated to the Division Three for 2014