Which is the more important World Cup - ODI or T20I?
The global showcase for the third most popular format is the one that has the most heritage and legacy. It happens only in cricket.
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In 2024, India won a World Cup that was hosted by the USA and the West Indies. But the interesting thing about that edition was that some people behind the scenes, namely the people who actually broadcast the cricket, didn’t want it to be played there.
The problem with hosting a tournament in the West Indies and America is that for the Indian market - which is obviously the most important when it comes to revenue and ratings - it doesn’t actually fit very well. Which is why we had the games played at odd hours.
Everyone thought India would do well. They were favourites for the tournament, and they went on to win it. But because it wasn’t in the right time-zone, it wasn’t going to have as much impact as they wanted.
The kind of impact that the broadcasters, and even the ICC to a certain extent, are looking for is for the T20 World Cup to be bigger than the ODI World Cup. But so far, even as T20 cricket has become the predominant format everywhere, somehow the ODI World Cup still has more prestige, legacy and importance in winning it.
So you are left with the situation where the 2023 World Cup – even though India lost in the final – is still thought of as a very big tournament. The length of time that it happened, the slow buildup and how good India were all the way through it contributed to that.
The 2024 T20 World Cup was when India broke their streak of 11 years without an ICC title, but the tournament still didn’t break through in the way you would expect for a major win by India after quite a long while.
India have obviously won the T20 World Cup again in 2026. This time, it was at home. And again, we all kind of predicted it was going to happen. But despite being very widely celebrated, when you look at the overall impact on the cricket world, it hasn’t exploded anywhere near the way the 2023 ODI World Cup did.
The ODI World Cups just feel bigger and more important, and nothing that happens in the T20 one seems to change that.
