ICC Intercontinental Cup

ICC Intercontinental Cup

Administrator	International Cricket Council
Format	First-class cricket
First edition	2004
Latest edition	2015–17
Tournament format	Round-robin and knockout
Number of teams	Varies (Highest 14) (Recently 8)
Current champion	Afghanistan (2nd title)
Most successful	Ireland (4 titles)
Most runs	Steve Tikolo (1,918)[1]
Most wickets	Trent Johnston (81)[2]

The ICC Intercontinental Cup was a first-class cricket tournament organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as part of its cricket development programme. It was designed to allow Associate Members of the ICC the chance to play first-class cricket matches over four days against teams of similar skill in a competition environment and prepare them for eventual promotion to Test cricket status. First run in 2004, two of the most successful teams in the history of the tournament, Ireland and Afghanistan were promoted to Full Member and Test status, in 2017.

In October 2018, the ICC issued a media release asking for an expression of interest from teams who have competed in previous editions of the tournament.^[3] However, since no further news regarding a new edition have emerged since then, the future of the tournament was put into doubt.^[4][5] In April 2021, the ICC looked at the possibility of multi-day matches between Associate Members with One Day International (ODI) status, and Test teams who are not part of the ICC World Test Championship.^[6]