Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to increase squad sizes for the 2027 ODI World Cup, believing that the tournament's expanded format will place a massive physical and mental toll on players.

The ICC recently brought changes to the structure of the 2027 World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. The tournament will feature 14 participating nations and introduce additional stages that will increase the number of matches needed to win the title.

Unlike the 2023 World Cup in India, where Australia won the title after playing 11 matches, the new format will need the eventual champions to compete in at least 13 games. Teams will kick off their campaign with five group-stage fixtures before progressing to a Super 7 stage, where they could play six more matches. The top teams will then faceoff in the semi-finals and final.

"One of the big things from my perspective is if it's going to be your pinnacle event, what do your squad sizes look like?" McDonald said on SEN radio.

"We had the dilemma of what it looked like having a 15-player squad for the last World Cup, and I think New Zealand were in the same boat where we had a couple of injuries, Travis Head been the most notable one, and I think Kane Williamson and a couple of others for New Zealand, where you end up with sort of 12-13 players to select from early on in your tournament, and you're trying to carry those other players through the early rounds, and you're not able to play potentially the way that you want to play, or structure up the way that you think you need to, and in particular in countries where you in the north or the south or the east or the west, the conditions change quite significantly."

McDonald asserted that larger squads will help the teams bring balance amid injury concerns in order to field their best players.

"My push within it, any time you're playing more games in the same period of time, you don't want it to be attritional. You want the best players to be available. So, there should be a conversation around - yep, that's great, you've landed at that, okay, what about the squad sizes?" McDonald said.

"This is going to be a pinnacle event. I think there's an argument to say, great, you've put more games in front of us, give us larger squads, allow us to play the way that we need to play within those conditions, and then also you've got the ability to carry those potential stars of the game that are under injury clouds leading in because the cricket leading into the World Cup is demanding, so you're going to have some people that potentially are 50-50 at that point in time.

"So let's carry the best players in there. Give us larger squads to be able to navigate through the early part, and then hopefully the pinnacle event has the best players playing, rather than being ruled out early on due to injury and the attritional nature of a World Cup."