ICC spells out 2015 WC qualification plan

The outcome of as many as four tournaments will determine which Associate and Affiliate teams qualify for the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

The tournament will comprise 14 teams, of which ten are the current Test-playing nations. The top two teams in the ongoing Intercontinental One-Day Cup - an eight-team tournament that runs till October 2013 - will also go through to the World Cup. The six remaining teams will join four others from the World Cricket League (teams placed third and fourth in Division Two, and those that finish first and second in Division Three) in a qualifying tournament, with the finalists making it to the World Cup.

The ICC, before its June conference, had decided, at a meeting in April, to stick to just ten teams in the 2015 World Cup but a wave of protests from the Associates, who feared exclusion, forced the member boards and the governing body to reconsider that decision. It was then agreed at Hong Kong that the 2015 World Cup will be a 14-team tournament, preceded by a qualifying round for the Associate teams.

The number of teams in the World Twenty20s in 2012 and 2014 - as agreed in Hong Kong - stands reduced from 16 to 12 (ten Full Members and two Associate teams).