Why not a 12 team World Cup with the top 8 teams + 4 teams from a qualification tournament of sorts between Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the top 5 associates in a league format?
Why should Bangladesh need to qualify for the next World Cup when they've made the quarter finals in this one?
New Zealand, who have a very good chance of winning this tournament - were ranked 9th at the point when the qualifications were decided and England were ranked first. That alone should show that using the ODI rankings to decide who qualifies is a terrible idea.
Obviously you're not going to send the hosts to a qualification tournament - unless you integrate it with the main tournament and have the farce where Bangladesh had to qualify for the World T20 they were hosting.
Indeed they are made worse by the ICC arbitrarily cutting teams off the ODI ranking table - leaving Ireland and Afghanistan the only associate teams on it. Scotland, the UAE, Hong Kong and PNG, have ODI status but aren't on the ranking table, so don't even have the chance to push up into a Top 8.
You find out the best team in the world by having a tournament involving the world, not trying to second guess that before the start of the tournament.
The only reason we have to keep debating World Cup formats is the utter paranoia about India or Pakistan not being good enough to get through the group stage.
This World Cup has proven that you can have the tension, the drama, the buzz, the crowd, the atmosphere, with associate teams. Let them play.
Here's my World Cup format:
- 16 teams in 4 groups of 4
- The top 2 teams, and the winner of playoffs between the third placed finishers in the groups - for a total of 10 teams.
- The 10 teams are put on a combined points table - the top 2 teams skip the first elimination round.
- The other 8 teams play knockouts 3 vs 10, 4 vs 9, etc.
- The winning 4 teams, plus the top 2 teams play - 1 vs 6, 2 vs 5 - etc.
- The winning 3 teams and the closest loser move through - top ranked team plays that loser, and 2 v 3
- Winner of those matches makes the final.
Despite being a little bit complicated - it only adds 3 matches to the finals compared to this World Cup, gives a benefit to the best teams in the group stage and gives a double chance to one team in the top 6. That combined with the second chance for the third placed group finishers, you hopefully can be confident India and Pakistan can make it through.
The 16 teams would be the 16 teams with ODI status - which means that the World Cricket League would be the qualification tournament for associates.
Difficult to know what to do about the rules and regulations. If you change one, you're going to cause issues elsewhere. One thing I would like to see though (much sooner than 2019 mind) is that if a review is called for and the decision stands, but only on the basis of Umpire's Call, that the team who reviewed should not lose the review. Let the decision stand, but let them keep the review.
This. So much of this.
I'd also make a minor change - make the fielding circle 30 metres, not 30 yards. And require that the ropes not be more than 2 metres from the boundary fence.