2018 ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier is going to begin on Sunday. Total 10 teams are taking participate in this tournament which is hosting by Zimbabwe. At the end of this tournament, the top two teams will qualify for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup while the top three associate members along with Netherlands will earn the ODI status until 2022.
Total ten teams qualified for the qualifier including the bottom four ODI rankings full members. It is the first time when ICC full members are playing the World Cup qualification.
Also read: Brendan Taylor backs host Zimbabwe to qualify to World Cup 2019
Qualification processes for the 2018 ICC WC Qualifier
Windies, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Ireland are the four bottom-ranked team in the ICC ODI Championship (the deadline date was 30th September 2017), who are playing the 2018 WC Qualifier.
Apart from these four teams, six more teams are joining in this tournament. Top four teams from 2015–17 ICC World Cricket League Championship are qualified for the 2018 WC qualifier and they are Netherlands, Scotland, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea (PNG).
The other two teams are qualified from the recently ended 2018 ICC World Cricket League Division Two. These two teams are United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Nepal who were the champions and runners-up respectively in Division Two.
The top two teams in the WC Qualifier, also we can call the finalists of the WC qualifier, will qualify for the 2019 CWC. Apart from that, top 3 associate members along with Netherlands will earn the ODI status until 2022. Netherlands has already earned the ODI status which will be available after the qualifier.
2018 ICC WC Qualifier’s format
In the 2018 ICC WC Qualifier, ten teams are equally divided into two groups. While Windies, Ireland, Netherlands, PNG and UAE are in Group A; the hosts Zimbabwe is in Group B along with Afghanistan, Scotland, Hong Kong and Nepal. The group stages will be a round-robin system where each team will play all other teams in their groups.
Top 3 teams from each group will qualify for the Super Sixes. Except the points earned against the bottom two teams, all the other group stages points will be carry forwarded for the Super Sixes round. In the Super Sixes, every team will play against the all other three teams who were not in their groups.
At the end of the Super Sixes round, top two teams will play for the final match to clinch the crown. However, both finalists will secure their places for the 2019 ICC CWC.
On an interesting note, Sri Lanka is the only team who has the ICC World Cup Qualifier trophy (1979) as well as the ICC World Cup trophy (1996).
Also watch: Complete Schedule Of The Nidahas Trophy 2018
Now, we will look at some important histories of the World Cup Qualifier.
ICC World Cup Qualifier (previously known ICC Trophy) history
| Year | Hosts | Champions | Runners-up | No.of teams qualified for the subsequent WC |
| 1979 | England | Sri Lanka | Canada | 2 |
| 1982 | England | Zimbabwe | Bermuda | 1 |
| 1986 | England | Zimbabwe | Netherlands | 1 |
| 1990 | Netherlands | Zimbabwe | Netherlands | 1 |
| 1994 | Kenya | UAE | Kenya | 3 |
| 1997 | Malaysia | Bangladesh | Kenya | 3 |
| 2001 | Canada | Netherlands | Namibia | 3 |
| 2005 | Ireland | Scotland | Ireland | 5 |
| 2009 | South Africa | Ireland | Canada | 4 |
| 2014 | New Zealand | Scotland | UAE | 2 |
2018 WC Qualifier’s teams important histories
| Team | No.of times played in qualifiers | Best result in qualifiers | No.of times played in World Cup | No.of times qualified in World Cup through qualifiers | Best result in World Cup |
| Windies*1 | – | – | 11 (every editions) | – | Champions (1975 & 1979) |
| Afghanistan | 1 (2009) | Super eights | 1 (2015) | – | Group Stage |
| Zimbabwe | 3 (1982-1990) | Champions (1982, 1986 & 1990) | 9 (Since 1983) | 3 (1983-1992) | Super Sixes (1999 & 2003) |
| Ireland | 5 (1994-2009) | Champions (2009) | 3 (Since 2007) | 2 (2007 & 2011) | Super eights (2007) |
| Netherlands | 10 (Since 1979) | Champions (2001) | 4 (1996, 2003-2011) | 4 | Group Stage |
| Scotland | 5 (Since 1997) | Champions (2005 & 2014) | 3 (1999, 2007 & 2015) | 3 | Group Stage |
| Hong Kong | 7 (1982-2001 & 2014) | Third Place (2014) | – | – | – |
| PNG*2 | 10 (Since 1979) | Third Place (1982) | – | – | – |
| Nepal | 2 (2001 & 2014) | Group Stage | – | – | – |
| UAE*3 | 6 (Since 1994) | Champions (1994) | 2 (1996 & 2015) | 2 | Group Stage |
(Notes: *1 famously known as West Indies; *2 Papua New Guinea; *3 United Arab Emirates)
