India continued their dominance in the ongoing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup with a sixth win of their campaign against England in Lucknow on Sunday, October 29. While the Indian team was back at the top of the table, the defending champions England are languishing at the bottom. England have lost five games in the tournament and are all but out of the race. However, the team got to know that their campaign might be over in the World Cup here but they have something to play for in the last three games - a spot in the Champions Trophy 2025.
The top eight teams in the world compete in the ICC Champions Trophy every four years, a tournament that was introduced to increase competitiveness among non-full member nations and take the tournament to non-popular countries. However, with the World Cup becoming a 10-team tournament, a similar 8-team competition became redundant and was done away with after the 2017 edition. However, in November 2021 it was decided that the World Cup would return to the 14-team format in 2027 and that the Champions Trophy would be brought back.
The format will remain the same with two groups of four teams each and then the semi-finals and the final. A 15-game tournament lasting two and a half weeks is set to be played in Pakistan in February-March 2025 and the qualification of teams will be dictated by how they finish in the World Cup points table.
Hence, teams like West Indies, Zimbabwe and Ireland are already out of the reckoning. India and South Africa have already qualified with at least 10 points as they can't fall below 7th position. Pakistan being the hosts too will be playing in the tournament, hence three out of eight places have already been taken.
The remaining five places will be decided by the top 7 in the table and if Pakistan is one of the teams in the top 7, then the top eight teams will make it to the Champions Trophy.
At present, the likes of New Zealand and Australia look set to join those three teams but the reigning world champions England are in real danger of missing out. England have to win all their remaining games to get to eight points and qualify for the Champions Trophy without depending upon other results. If they lose even one out of three games against Australia, the Netherlands or Pakistan, they will have to hope for other results to go their way and finish in the top 7-8.
The Champions Trophy qualification race has added another dimension to the remaining 16 games in the group stage of the tournament as each game is important and the likes of Netherlands and Afghanistan will be keen to get into the tournament, having already caused a few upsets.
