The International Cricket Council (ICC) has added an additional round to next year’s ODI World Cup, which will be hosted in southern Africa, and created space for one more team to make a Super 7 stage for the tournament. The tournament will feature 14 participants, up from 10 teams in 2023, but only for the first stage, in which teams that qualify 12th-14th will contest a round-robin series, with the top team being added to a 12-team second stage. Those teams will be divided into two groups of six, with the top three sides, plus the highest-finishing fourth-place team across the two groups, going into a Super 7 stage. Thereafter, another round-robin will be played with the top four teams qualifying for the final. The ICC said on Wednesday that the revised format will create “greater context, competitiveness and consequence during the event, ensuring meaningful competition from the opening match through to the finals”.“The structure has been designed to strengthen the competitive narrative across every stage of the event, with matches from round 1 and round 2 carrying higher consequence, with a highly competitive Super 7 stage witnessing seven qualifying teams going through a round-robin stage to qualify for the semifinals,” the ICC added.The bulk of the tournament will take place in South Africa, with the ICC set to announce fixtures in October.“The increased consequence and enhanced competitive intensity promise to enhance the overall experience for fans while continuing to provide emerging teams with the opportunity to compete on cricket’s biggest stage.”The ODI World Cup has undergone various revisions to the format since becoming a white-ball event, played with coloured clothes in 1992. That competition, hosted in Australia and New Zealand, featured nine teams. Since then, the most participating teams in one event were 16 for the Caribbean tournament in 2007. The ICC decided to increase the participating teams to 14 next year, with Namibia, which will host a handful of matches, having to go through qualifying. The ICC also announced a change to the format for the next T20 World Cup in 2028, with five groups featuring four teams instead of four groups of five, as was the case in India this year. That will create a new Super 10 phase, which will feature two groups of five teams. But the ICC has sought to increase jeopardy there too, by providing automatic qualifying spots to group winners only, with teams finishing second and third playing a series of eliminators to determine the remaining semifinal spots. That tournament will be hosted in Australia and New Zealand.