Ireland and Scotland have qualified for the 2024 Men's T20 World Cup, after favourable results in the Europe Region Qualifier on Thursday. While a washout against Germany pushed Ireland through, hosts Scotland beat Denmark by 33 runs to confirm their berth for next year's tournament.
"While it's true that we'd rather have achieved qualification on the field today, we're delighted to have achieved our primary objective of qualifying for next year's T20 World Cup," Ireland captain Paul Stirling said. "We came to Scotland with a clear plan and style of play we wanted to implement, and I think we delivered on that front.
"So we'll celebrate job done this afternoon, but there is a trophy on the line tomorrow, and we are keen to continue that winning momentum going into the India T20 series next month."
Scotland's victory over Denmark makes it five wins out of five for them in the Europe Region Qualifier. This spree also has them on top of the tournament's points table. However, had Denmark beaten Scotland, then Italy would have stood a chance of making it to the T20 World Cup next year, since they would have been the only other team that could match Scotland's points total had they beaten both Austria and Germany in their upcoming games. Ireland, meanwhile, won all four of their matches before their match against Germany was rained out.
Ireland and Scotland gained automatic entry into the Europe Region Qualifier thanks to their participation in the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia. Germany and Jersey made the Qualifier on the basis of taking part in the 2022 global qualifiers, while Austria, Denmark and Italy earned their spots by winning their respective sub-regional qualifiers.
The 2024 T20 World Cup, scheduled to be hosted jointly by the West Indies and the USA, is set to be a 20-team tournament. The teams will be divided into four groups of five each for the first round, with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the Super 8 stage. The Super 8 teams will be split into two groups of four each, with the top two in each group reaching the semi-finals.
Twelve teams had already qualified for the next T20 World Cup before the regional qualifiers. These are hosts West Indies and USA, the top eight teams at the 2022 T20 World Cup - Australia, England, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka - and Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who qualified by virtue of the T20I rankings.
The East Asia Pacific Qualifier is currently underway in Papua New Guinea, with the hosts on top of the four-team table. The top team from this event will qualify for the T20 World Cup.
Qualifiers for the Americas (for one spot at the World Cup), Africa (two spots) and Asia (two spots) will also take place over the coming months.