Ireland will be given the chance to qualify for the 2015 Cricket World Cup after the ICC reversed the decision to restrict the tournament to the 10 Full Member nations.
The ongoing annual conference of the ICC have backed the decision to include four Associate teams in the tournament, reverting to 14 teams - the same number of team that played in this year's World Cup.
'The ICC Executive Board opted to retain the 14-team format that was used at the highly successful and universally acclaimed ICC Cricket World Cup 2011,' the governing body said in a statement.
The ICC had sparked outrage in April when they announced plans to reduce the World Cup to a 10 team tournament, excluding all Associate nations.
This u-turn represents a significant boost for Ireland, who will now be strongly expected to qualify for their third consecutive World Cup, after establishing themselves as the best-performed Associate nation in recent years.
In addition to today's decision it was also agreed that the next two World twenty20 tournaments would be reduced back to 12 teams.
'The ICC executive board today reversed its previous decisions and approved a 14-team format for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 to be held in Australia and New Zealand and a 12-team format for the ICC World Twenty20 events in 2012 (Sri Lanka) and 2014 (Bangladesh),' the statement read.
'The board had previously decided in October 2010 that the ICC Cricket World Cup would comprise a 10-team event and that the ICC World Twenty20 events would involve 16 teams.'
The ICC also revealed the 2019 World Cup would be a 10-team tournament, with their rankings system used to determined the first eight direct entries. A qualification tournament will then be held to determine the final two teams to fill the numbers.
'In addition, the board confirmed that the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019 would be a 10-team event with the top eight in the Reliance ICC rankings earning their qualification automatically with the remaining two places being decided by a qualification competition,' the statement added.
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