It was hard to think of a scenario during this World Cup where the Champions Trophy (CT) would become a hot topic of conversation. Binned off after the previous iteration in 2017 — when Pakistan beat India at the Oval — it was reinstated two years ago as a means of adding another men’s tournament to the ICC roster, thus increasing the value of the portfolio at a time of decreasing revenues from bilateral ODIs.
But on Saturday evening, after his team’s defeat by the Netherlands in Calcutta, the Bangladesh captain, Shakib Al Hasan, dropped the topic quietly into his post-match remarks. When asked about his team’s prospects for the rest of the World Cup, he discounted their chances of making the semi-finals (they are in ninth position, one above England), but raised the issue of qualification for the CT. “You have to be in the top eight if you want to be in the CT,” he said.
Really? This was news to just about everyone bar Shakib, who has an interest in being there, given that he has intimated that he intends to retire from international cricket after the CT, scheduled for Pakistan in early 2025. It didn’t take long for the ramifications of this to become clear to those who follow England: if Bangladesh are worried about qualification, then England had reason to be equally concerned.
It was before the game against India that questions around CT qualification began to circulate and when the ICC confirmed the criteria to those asking. Confirmation was necessary because when the decision to reinstate the CT was made in November 2021, there was no accompanying detail for general consumption around the qualification regulations, although these were relayed to the various governing bodies.
It emerged after the India match that England’s white-ball coach, Matthew Mott, had only just discovered the situation himself. Since the decision to revive the competition was made, there has been a lot of change at the ECB, with a new chairman, chief executive, director of cricket and two new coaches appointed after that date. Also gone is someone less high-profile: John Carr, a long-time staffer at ECB, who was across all the detail of cricket operations.
Advertisement
Mind you, it is not difficult to conceive how this detail would be overlooked, such was the certainty of England’s position during the dominant years of one-day cricket, between 2016 and 2022. That certainty has dissipated now, with their chances hanging by a thread. They will have to win at least two of their remaining three games against Australia, Netherlands and Pakistan to avoid not qualifying for the CT for the first time.
Regardless of all that, it seems a curious way to determine qualification. Put England’s woes to one side for a moment and think of West Indies, for example. They missed out on qualification for this World Cup — through their own inadequacies — but are now punished twice for that incompetence. By not taking part in this competition, they automatically miss the CT, which is the same for Zimbabwe and Ireland, the other full-member nations missing here.
(Mind you, England supporters, starved of Test cricket in the Caribbean, could start a petition for an ad-hoc Test series in February-March 2025, should England fail to qualify. I imagine they, and the West Indies Cricket Board, would look forward to the trade-off!)
What would the financial ramifications be of missing out? There would be no effect on the ECB’s television revenues — the television rights were bought directly from the ICC — although the consequences for the relevant broadcaster (Sky, in this instance) of a tournament not involving England would be unpalatable, no doubt. There is a participation fee of $500,000 (about £410,000) for each of the eight teams, which would be forfeited, although this would be offset by the savings made on players’ match, tour fees and possible (don’t laugh) win bonuses.
Intriguingly, there could be a knock-on effect from any future ICC distribution. This proposed revenue distribution model, by which the biggest share by far (38.5 per cent of the whole) goes to India, and the next largest to England (6.89 per cent), is based on four criteria: full-member status, commercial contribution, historical cricketing status and performance in ICC events. Should this distribution model continue for the next cycle, post-2031, then any failure to qualify for the CT would detract from that performance element.
Advertisement
To the ECB, the performance element is worth about a fifth of their proposed annual distribution for 2024-31, and the CT would be a small element of that, so any financial hit is unlikely to be huge. Far more significant would be the embarrassment of missing out for a full-member country like England, which is the second-best resourced cricketing nation. At present the world champions at 50-over and 20-over cricket, that embarrassment would be acute for the players too.
With India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand having now opened a gap between themselves and the rest in the group stage of this World Cup, there was potential for the final fortnight to have fallen flat. Suddenly, there is an added edge to England’s final three games. The coach, captain and players are very much aware of the qualification requirement for the CT now, even if they were not before.
