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The West Indies Cricket team have missed the direct qualification for the 2027 ODI World Cup and has to go through the qualifier.

This will be their third consecutive time to pass through the qualifying tournament. They qualified for the World Cup in 2019, but failed to qualify for the 2023 edition of the tournament.

According to the qualification process, the top eight teams in the ODI team rankings on September 30, 2026, will be automatically qualified for the 2027 World Cup, which excludes the host nations South Africa and Namibia.

However, Afghanistan secured a spot in the World Cup after a win against Ireland in the 3rd game of the five-match series played at Belfast.

The Afghans will be joining the likes of Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England, Bangladesh, South Africa and Zimbabwe in the line for the World Cup.

However, the West Indies, who were ranked in the 10th spot, have only two matches before the deadline. They will be travelling to India to take on the men in Blues, and even a win in the two games will fail to secure an automatic selection.

Hence, they will be going through the qualifiers, which will be played in February next year, to qualify for the showpiece event.

The qualifier will feature 10 teams with the top four advancing to the 2027 World Cup. The ICC has brought in significant changes in the 2027 ODI World Cup format, expanding it to a 14-team tournament.

Ireland and the West Indies will be entering the qualifier directly. They will be joined by the top four teams from CWC league 2 and the top four teams from the qualifier playoffs.

The Qualifier playoff will feature the bottom four teams from CWC league 2 and four teams from the challenge league, effectively the third tier of the qualification pathway.

The top four from the eight-team playoff will progress to the main qualifier. The challenge League has 12 teams split into two groups of six. Each team will play three round-robin tournaments during the qualification cycle.

The winner of the qualifier will earn a place directly in the second round of the 2027 ODI World Cup. The teams finishing second, third and fourth will have to play the Super series, with the winner of that three-team competition also advancing to the second round.