The Twenty20 World Cup is set to expand to 24 teams, with ambitions to grow the tournament to 32 nations, according to British daily newwpaper The Telegraph.
The competition is likely to expand from 20 to 24 sides from 2032, and potentially even the 2030 edition.
This growth is viewed as a staging-post towards the ultimate aim of a 32-team T20 World Cup, which would position cricket as a genuinely global sport.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has discussed how the T20 World Cup can accelerate the growth of the sport around the world.
The 2024 and 2026 editions of the competition featured 20 teams. This year's World Cup, where Zimbabwe defeated Australia and Sri Lanka, while Nepal and Italy pushed England close, was seen as furthering the case for emerging nations to enjoy more opportunities.
The new format for the 2028 World Cup, which will be played in Australia and New Zealand, is seen as paving the way for expansion to 24 teams. The tournament will feature five groups of four countries in the preliminary stage, with the top two in each pool proceeding to a Super-10 stage and then the knockout rounds.
Under a 24-team T20 World Cup, the most likely format would be six groups of four sides in the first stage. Then, the top two countries in each group would advance to a Super-12 stage, with the leading sides then advancing to the final stages.
Such a tournament structure would increase access to the T20 World Cup while also ensuring teams from the most commercially lucrative markets - above all India - play a significant number of matches.
Based on the current T20I rankings, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Italy and Hong Kong would be the four countries to benefit from the expansion from 20 to 24 teams. Other emerging nations who could welcome the growth of the World Cup include the United States, who have impressed in the last two competitions, Canada, Nepal and Nigeria, who are considered to have high potential. There is also excitement about cricket's potential in Germany, where the game has enjoyed a boom because of migration, largely from Afghanistan.
The recent change in the format of next year's ODI World Cup, with only 12 countries proceeding to the main stage of the competition - rather than 14 as originally planned - has provoked anger among Associate nations. Associates were not aware of any plans for the World Cup changes until the new format was approved at the ICC annual conference in Edinburgh earlier this month.
The new format attracted considerable criticism, including from the World Cricketers' Association (WCA). The WCA chief executive Tom Moffat said: "It is difficult to reconcile the game's stated ambition of growing cricket globally with decisions that reduce meaningful opportunities at pinnacle events for some of the countries that stood to benefit most from genuine expansion."
While fears that leading Associates are being squeezed out of 50-over cricket remain acute, the ICC can now argue that opportunities are expanding in the shortest format of the game.
Cricket will also rejoin the Olympics in 2028, ending a 128-year wait to appear in the Games.
