What is Australia’s place in developing cricket in other nations? We pride ourselves on being a leading nation in our great game, however just what do we do to promote it beyond our own borders?
What is our place in helping developing cricket nations get better?
Of the Test playing nations we have touring our shores regularly, the big four are England, India, and South Africa along with Australia.
The next tier are Pakistan, West Indies (for the purpose of this discussion treated as a nation), New Zealand, and Sri Lanka, then trailing some way behind in a development sense are Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
Setting aside the fact we could do more to help the latter two, what are we are doing to help those countries whose teams are just below Test cricket?
Ireland, Afghanistan, Nepal, Kenya, Scotland, and Canada come to mind as associate members that need assistance to build the game.
Could we sponsor one or two every year to participate in our domestic 50 over or Twenty 20 tournaments?
Could we have a regular program of Australia A or youth games against these associate member and perhaps Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in Cairns, Brisbane, Darwin, etc during the southern winter?
If it does nothing else it might help reduce the reprehensible practise of poaching from nations like Ireland and Zimbabwe, thereby depleting the talent pool in these countries.
Think of Ireland now with Eoin Morgan and Boyd Rankin added.
Should we have an embedded sponsorship program for ICC associate member players in our grade cricket, to help develop individual players? There is no reason to think a great player couldn’t come from a current non-Test nation.
Think of how little we saw of undoubtedly one of the great wicketkeeper batsmen, Andy Flower (if you’re unsure of his credentials, look him up on Cricinfo).
No doubt there are flaws in this thinking, ones that CA have contemplated. I do believe however there is more that can be done than presently occurs.
We need to explore what we can do, rather than look for the reasons why we can’t assist.
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