Next men's T20 World Cup to be in played in new format
New Delhi (PTI): The 2024 T20 World Cup will be played in a different format in which 20 participating countries will be divided into four groups of five teams each and the first round will be followed by a Super Eight stage.
In the 2021 and 2022 editions, the first round was followed by the Super 12 but in the next tournament, the top two teams from each of the four groups will progress to the Super Eight phase, where they will be further divided into two groups of four each.
Then, the top two sides in each of the two Super Eights groups will make the semi-finals, which will be followed by the final.
As many as 12 teams have already secured their berth in the next edition of the tournament to be played in West Indies and United States.
As hosts, the West Indies and the USA take up the first two spots.
The top eight teams in the recently-held T20 World Cup in Australia (top four in each Super 12 group), including reigning champions England and runners-up Pakistan, have already gained spots for the 2024 tournament, with Afghanistan and Bangladesh, the next best teams on the ICC men's T20I Rankings, also securing their spot.
The final eight spots for the 2024 tournament will be decided in regional play, the ICC said in a press release.
"While South Africa claimed 2024 qualification by virtue of their top eight finish, Zimbabwe were unable to capitalise on their strong start to the campaign, finishing last in the Super 12 group to be sent back to regional qualification," the ICC said in the release.
Africa, Asia and Europe will have two qualification spots, with one spot for both the Americas and East-Asia Pacific regions.
In the last two editions of the T20 World Cup, the first round saw two groups of four teams which included countries that entered the event through the qualifying stage and teams that finished between ninth and 12th in the previous tournament.
The top two sides from each group in the first round then joined the rest of the eight teams that had already qualified for the Super 12 stage.
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Melinda French Gates resigns as Gates Foundation co-chair, 3 years after her divorce from Bill Gates
New York, May 13: Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit she and her ex-husband Bill Gates founded and built into one of the world's largest philanthropic organisations over the past 20 years.
“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform on Monday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”
She praised the foundation's CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation's board of trustees, which was significantly expanded after the couple announced their divorce in May 2021.
“The time is right for me to move forward into the next chapter of my philanthropy,” French Gates wrote in her statement. She organises some of her investments and philanthropic gifts through her organisation, Pivotal Ventures, which is not a nonprofit.
Bill Gates thanked French Gates for her “critical” contributions to the foundations in a statement, saying, “I am sorry to see her leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work.”
French Gates will receive $12.5 billion as part of her agreement with Gates, which she said would commit to future work focused on women and families.
The Gates Foundation did not immediately return a request for comment about whether those assets would come from the foundation itself. In an emailed statement, the foundation said that Suzman announced the decision to employees on Monday.
“After a difficult few years watching women's rights rolled back in the US and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory,” Suzman said of French Gates.
Suzman said he knew many had joined the foundation in part because of their admiration for her advocacy, especially around gender equity.
“I know how beloved Melinda is here,” Suzman wrote.
The Gates Foundation holds $75.2 billion in its endowment as of December 2023, and announced in January, it planned to spend $8.6 billion through the course of its work in 2024.
The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce from Pivotal Ventures.
