Scotland and the Netherlands say the ICC stopped replying, and two teams will now be out of the World Cup after two games

Cricket Scotland and the Royal Dutch Cricket Association went public on Monday with something boards usually keep behind closed doors. They have asked the ICC twice to explain how the 2027 World Cup format was changed, and say that since the second of those meetings, more than a fortnight ago, nobody has come back to them.

The joint statement calls the silence “disappointing and disrespectful given the significance of the issues raised”. It also says the two boards hold “significant concerns about both the impact of these changes and the process through which they have been introduced”, and that the changes “represent a setback to Associate Member cricket and risk undermining” the work done to grow the game beyond the Full Members.

What the ICC actually changed

The 2027 tournament in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia was sold five years ago as a 14-team World Cup: two groups of seven, then a Super Six. Teams have planned their cycles around that. On 15 July, at the ICC’s annual conference in Edinburgh, the shape changed.

Now the three lowest-ranked qualifiers, the sides who come in 12th, 13th and 14th, open the tournament in a round-robin called the Super Series. One of them goes through to join the other 11 in two groups of six, 30 matches in all. The other two are out, having played two matches each. The top seven then contest a Super 7 round-robin of 21 matches to decide the semi-finalists.

Fourteen teams, then. Twelve of them get a World Cup.

The part that stings is what it took to get there

Eight Associate teams are currently working through Cricket World Cup League 2, where each side plays 36 matches. Those 36 matches do not qualify anyone for the World Cup. The top four go through to the 2027 Qualifier, the rest get a play-off before even that, and the Qualifier is what feeds the World Cup, where a side arriving as one of the bottom three can be gone inside a week.

Scotland and the Netherlands are both deep in that grind, alongside Canada, Namibia, Nepal, Oman, the UAE and the United States. Scotland were second in the table and the Netherlands third as of Sunday, with the competition running until December. So the two boards are arguing about the terms of a tournament they have spent three years trying to reach and have not reached yet.

Netherlands captain Scott Edwards put the players’ side of it in July, in a statement issued through the World Cricketers’ Association. “Qualifying for an ODI World Cup is a huge achievement for any country, so when the reality of that opportunity changes after years of planning, it’s incredibly disappointing,” he said. “If we’re serious about making cricket a global sport, we should be creating more opportunities on the global stage, not less.”

His team have a case to make. The Netherlands qualified for the ten-team 2023 World Cup ahead of Ireland, Zimbabwe and the West Indies, then beat South Africa and Bangladesh once they got there. They have not played an ODI against a Full Member since.

India know how good these teams can be on this continent

The 2027 event is the first World Cup in Africa since 2003, and Indian fans of a certain age will remember exactly what an Associate side did at that one. Kenya beat Sri Lanka, beat Bangladesh, went through the Super Six and reached the semi-finals, where India met them in Durban on 20 March 2003 and won by 91 runs. India made 270 for 4. Kenya were bowled out for 179 with Steve Tikolo top-scoring on 56.

Nobody is claiming Kenya were going to win that tournament. The point is that they were there long enough for the story to happen. Under the format the ICC has just adopted, a Kenya of 2027 seeded 13th plays two matches, loses them, and flies home before most Indian viewers have worked out who is in the squad.

Where this goes

The ICC has said the new structure will deliver a more compelling tournament and still give emerging teams a chance to compete at the top level. It has also argued for years that T20, not the 50-over game, is the format that grows cricket in new markets, which is the honest subtext of the whole row and the reason the men’s T20 World Cup has gone to 20 teams.

What Scotland and the KNCB are pushing now is narrower than the format itself. They want the decision explained in writing, and they want to know how a change of this size was made without the members it affects most being properly consulted. Whether the ICC answers before the qualifying pathway finishes is a fair question.

The World Cup itself runs from 4 October to 21 November 2027, with 54 matches across three countries. Less than 14 months out, two of the boards chasing a place in it are talking to the governing body through press releases.

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