2019–21 ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League  The 2019–21 ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League is the inaugural edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League, a cricket tournament which forms part of the 2023 Cricket World Cup Qualification process. The Cricket World Cup Challenge League replaced the World Cricket League (WCL) which was previously used as the pathway to the Cricket World Cup. The first fixtures took place in September 2019, with all matches having List A status. The league features the twelve teams ranked from 21st to 32nd place in the WCL following the conclusion of the 2019 ICC World Cricket League Division Two tournament in Namibia. The twelve teams are split into two groups, with each group playing a six-team tournament three times on an annual basis. The top team in each group will advance to the play-off tournament, taking place in 2022, which feeds into the 2022 Cricket World Cup Qualifier tournament. The remaining ten teams will be eliminated from the 2023 World Cup. In addition, either of the top teams could be promoted to the next Cricket World Cup League 2. Of the two top teams from this Challenge League and the bottom two teams in the 2019–22 ICC Cricket World Cup League 2, whichever two of these four teams are ranked higher in the 2022 ICC Cricket World Cup Play-Off will play in the next League 2 while the two teams ranked lower will play in the next Challenge League. The bottom two teams from each group will play in the relegation play-off tournament in an attempt to qualify for the Cricket World Cup Challenge League in the 2027 Cricket World Cup cycle. The following teams were ranked from 21st to 32nd in the World Cricket League following the conclusion of the 2019 ICC World Cricket League Division Two tournament, and were allocated to Groups A and B.  Group A:  Group B:  In July 2019, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that the Malaysian Cricket Association and Cricket Hong Kong would host the first rounds of the tournament. However, citing the instability in Hong Kong, the first round of matches in League B were moved to Oman. In October 2019, the ICC confirmed that Malaysia would again be the host for the second round of matches in League A, with the Uganda Cricket Association hosting the Group B matches. The 2020 Malaysia Cricket World Cup Challenge League A tournament was originally scheduled to take place in March 2020. However, in March 2020, the ICC confirmed that the tournament had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of playing it later in the year.