NEW DELHI, 1 July 2005 — The 2006 Champions Trophy to be held in India has been reduced to eight teams instead of 12 to make the limited-overs tournament more competitive, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said yesterday.

The ICC has taken note of criticism that the 2004 event in England featured many one-sided matches due to the enlarged field of 12, which included non-Test-playing nations Kenya and the United States.

The Champions Trophy, the second biggest tournament after the World Cup, will now have eight teams split into two groups of four with the top two from each group advancing to the semifinals.

The eight teams will comprise the top six nations in the ICC one-day table as on April 1, 2006 plus two sides drawn from a qualifying round just prior to the main tournament in October. The qualifying round will be contested on a round-robin basis by teams placed 7-10 in the ICC table.

ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed said in a statement the new format will be highly competitive for all participating teams.

“After the last Champions Trophy, we sought the opinions of a wide range of stakeholders and conducted a thorough review of the tournament’s structure,” Speed said.

“The new format has addressed the main flaws of the previous 12-team system and we now look forward to an exciting major international event in India.”

If the current one-day table had been taken into account, hosts India would not have gained a direct entry due to their seventh place in the rankings. The present top six are Australia (137 points), Sri Lanka (117), New Zealand (116), South Africa (112), Pakistan (112) and England (106).

The next four in the list are India (97), West Indies (95), Zimbabwe (50) and Kenya (26).

Test nation Bangladesh, placed 11th on 12 points, need major successes over the next nine months to even enter the qualifying round.

The tournament will be held across India just five months before the World Cup opens in the Caribbean in February, 2007.

Japan Upgraded to ICC Associate Member

In Sydney, Japan has been upgraded to associate member status of the International Cricket Council, in a boost for the ICC’s East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Development Program, the EAP said yesterday.

Japan, who received their ratification at this week’s ICC annual conference in London, join new affiliate members Jersey, Guernsey, Mali and Slovenia, taking the total membership of the ICC to 96 countries.

Japan, an affiliate ICC member since 1989, join Fiji and Papua New Guinea as associate members of the ICC EAP region, the EAP said in a statement.

The region also has seven ICC affiliate members including Indonesia, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, South Korea and Philippines. There are now 915 senior and 2,896 junior players playing in organized cricket activities in Japan with 22 grounds used for regular competition including a facility at the base of Mt Fuji, the EAP said.

ICC EAP Regional Development Manager Tim Anderson welcomed the approval of Japan as an associate member. “The ICC EAP Development Program is excited about working with the Japan Cricket Association as it now takes the development of cricket in Japan to the next level.” From Sept. 23 to 29 Japan will be competing against Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Indonesia and tournament hosts Vanuatu in the 2005 EAP Cricket Cup, a regional component of the ICCs World Cup qualifying series.