Bangladesh get closer to England in rankings as ODI World Cup 2027 qualification looms

Chattogram:

Bangladesh won the third and final ODI against New Zealand on Thursday to seal a memorable series win by a 2-1 margin in Chattogram. With this series win, they added four rating points to their kitty in the team rankings and also increased the gap with the West Indies, who are in 10th place at the moment.

For the unversed, the ODI rankings are extremely important for full-member nations to qualify directly for the World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia next year. South Africa and Zimbabwe have directly qualified for the tournament as they are the hosts, but Namibia are playing qualification tournaments as they are not a full-member nation. Now apart from South Africa and Zimbabwe, the top eight-ranked teams as of March 2027, will directly make it to the mega event.

With South Africa placed fifth in the rankings and unlikely to drop below eighth in the next 12 months, the team ranked ninth will also make it to the World Cup directly. This is where the bottom three teams in this regard will fight for the next 11 months in the ODI format.

West Indies battling to avoid playing qualification tournament

West Indies were unfortunate to miss out on the ODI World Cup in 2023 but they would be keen on directly qualifying for the tourament this time around. But they are currently ranked 10th with 77 points to their credit and Bangladesh's series win over New Zealand has made it tougher for them.

Bangladesh are now on 83 points, six more than the West Indies and somewhere, England also might have started to worry. A lot of ODI cricket will be played after the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season and the aim for West Indies, Bangladesh and England would be to improve their rankings.

Only two of these three teams will get to directly qualify for the World Cup unless Afghanistan lose their way drastically in the next 11 months.

ICC ODI Team Rankings as of April 24, 2026

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