When cricket plays only 18 countries, why did the ICC release 80 countries?

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has released the new T20 series on May 3. The special thing about this ranking is that for the first time 80 teams have been included. Earlier, the list of 18 teams was coming. Pakistan's team is at the top with 286 points in this list. Teams such as Austria, Botswana, Luxembourg, and Mozambique have got a place in this ranking for the first time.

In this ranking list, Afghanistan's team has left behind Twenty20 World Cup Winner West Indies team and Winner Sri Lanka of T20 World Cup 2014. Afghanistan is seventh in the new ranking list. Afghanistan has also left Bangladesh.

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If a team has performed well after Afghanistan, then it is a team of Nepal. Nepal has gained 3 positions and has reached 14th to 11th position. The Nepal team has made it to the top of the two-Test playing nations, Zimbabwe (13) and Ireland (15).

The ICC took the decision to increase the rankings list last year. According to this, the matches between the ICC member countries from January 1, 2019, will be counted as an international match. This new list includes all the member countries that have played 6 matches against ICC member countries after May 2016.

Cricket Experts believe that this move of ICC will reach T20 cricket far away. The competition will increase and in such a scenario, better cricket will be seen and the popularity of cricket will also increase.

See top 10 listings.

Team             Points          Ratings
Pakistan        7154            286
South Africa  4196           262
England          3917           261
Australia         5471           261
India               7273            260
New Zealand   4056           254
Afghanistan     3849           241
Sri Lanka         4093           227
West Indies      4747           226
Bangladesh      3525           220

The complete list can be seen here.