ICC says 100 countries play T20I cricket, including Brazil, Argentina

Cricket's status as a global game is often disputed on the basis that not many countries play it. But the International Cricket Council's (ICC) latest update on rankings puts the bat and ball game in the league of international sports like football, badminton and chess, at least on paper.

For the first time, ICC's global T20I rankings features 100 teams. The ICC said in a statement that the May list was updated with the inclusion of "all sides that have played a minimum of eight T20Is over the past three years". In 2019, when ICC released its global T20I rankings, there were 80 sides in the list.

FIFA, the global body for football, has 211 recognised members, while FIDE, the world chess organisation, has at least 201, the same number recognised by the Badminton World Federation.

The bottom-ranked (100th) team in the ICC T20I rankings is Greece, which has played six matches and lost all, with the latest a 75-run defeat to Czech Republic in a Sub-Regional Europe Qualifier last August.

Football powerhouses Argentina (52), Brazil (81), France (45) and Germany (35) are also featured on the ICC list. Argentina and Brazil played each other in a Sub-Regional Americas Qualifier in December 2024. Argentina won the match by 11 runs after bowling out Brazil for 96 runs.

However, ICC has only recognised 12 countries as full members, namely Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe. The other countries are Associate Members, with 20 of them having ODI status, including the Netherlands, which was among the 10 teams that competed in the 2023 Cricket World Cup held in India.