WCL meaning in Sports ?

The ICC World Cricket League (WCL) was a series of international one-day cricket tournaments for national teams without Test status (i.e., teams of Associate status) administered by the International Cricket Council. All Associate Members of the ICC were eligible to compete in the league system, which featured a promotion and relegation structure between divisions. The league system had two main aims: to provide a qualification system for the Cricket World Cup that could be accessed by all Associate Members and as an opportunity for these sides to play international one-day matches against teams of similar standards.

The league began in 2007, where teams were allocated into divisions based on their performance in the qualification tournaments for the 2007 World Cup; the six initial teams in Division One were the teams that had qualified for the 2007 World Cup. At this stage, there were only five divisions. The WCL expanded to eight divisions at one point.

The WCL was a pathway to the Cricket World Cup until 2019. Following the conclusion of the 2019 Division Two tournament, the WCL was replaced by the ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 and the ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League. The final rankings from the WCL were used to place teams into the two new leagues.