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Cricket's Associations - how the other sides live...

Roar Guru
4th March, 2011
12

Want to play a new game? We’ll call it “Associate For A Year”. First prize – a trip to the 2015 ICC World Cup. This year’s entrant is … Australia!

The aim of the game is to progress far enough in cricketing development and on the ICC’s one-day international rankings list that the team will earn a spot in the 2015 tournament, to be played in Australia and New Zealand…

Sound far-fetched? Probably, but it’s worth considering how cricket’s “other half” live sometimes, don’t you think?

Imagine if Australia – through small population, overdose on other non-cricket sports or political upheaval – were taken back a peg by the ICC and brought down to the level of an Ireland or Holland for a while.

No Test matches in between World Cups, no major tours to or from any other Test country, no invites to a World Series-style triangular tournament… What would Australia be left with?

Based on the journey of the Netherlands between the 2007 and 2011 tournaments, the answer would be not very much at all, certainly not enough experience to ensure everything comes together in the space of a fortnight and hey presto there’s a World Cup victory on a plate.

Life as a second-tier country is lonely.

You get the crumbs from the international schedule, spend most of your time playing against Afghanistan, Canada, Ireland, Kenya and occasionally Namibia and Zimbabwe’s own second XI.

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Hardly preparation for facing the likes of Pakistan and South Africa.

Had Australia suffered that same schedule as the Dutch, the limitations of the men in canary yellow would have been equally exposed.

After competing at the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, Australia would find itself…

* Playing in the one-day cup competition of the nearest available Test nation, as Holland does against English county opponents. In this case, that would mean Australia sends a full-strength XI to take on the Canterbury Wizards, Otago Volts, Auckland Aces, Central District Stags, Northern District Knights and Wellington Firebirds. There’s at least six matches per year.

* Play in the ICC’s Intercontinental Cup four-day first-class series against other Associate-level teams. The 2007-08 event would see Australia meet Scotland, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Holland and Ireland. Five more matches. The 2009-10 edition involved Afghanistan, Canada, Scotland, Holland, Zimbabwe’s second XI, Ireland and Kenya. Another seven games.

* Then it’s the smattering of one-day internationals… against Canada, West Indies, Ireland, Scotland and Bermuda (2007 – seven matches), against Ireland, Scotland, Bermuda and Kenya again (2008 – five matches), against Kenya, Bermuda, Canada, Afghanistan (2009 – seven matches), against Kenya, Scotland, Canada, Afghanistan, Ireland and Bangladesh (2010 – 12 matches). That’s 31 games in four years. Total so far across all levels of the sport? 24 in New Zealand, 12 four-dayers, 31 one-dayers…

* Finally, the Twenty20 games – against England, Pakistan, Canada, Kenya, Afghanistan and Ireland. Seven games. Total between 2007 and 2010? 74 matches.

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Australia – in its Test team reality – actually took part in a staggering 42 Tests, 92 ODIs and 34 T20 internationals in the same period (June 1, 2007 to January 1, 2011). Total? 168 games. Over twice as many as it would have as an Associate.

Still, Dutch captain Peter Borren was, perhaps incredibly, smiling even after Holland was smashed by 231 runs by South Africa in Mohali last night.

“It seems as though Borren and his team have got over the ignominy of hefty defeats and are starting to view their World Cup games as learning experiences and time to play against the full members that they hardly ever get outside of major tournaments,” wrote Firdose Moonda.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Borren had made his views on the current state of Associate-level cricket plain to Moonda.

Up to today, the Dutch have met Test-nation opponents four times since 2009.

“How do you think a Full member would go if they didn’t play other full members for four years and then had to come into this World Cup?,” Borren told reporters.

“The same countries that say we shouldn’t be at World Cups are the same ones that don’t play us between World Cups and that’s difficult.”

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It’s a fair point, particularly if we put the Aussies into the Dutch shoes – er, clogs.

As former Irish player Trent Johnston told CricInfo’s Brydon Coverdale yesterday, Ireland are not ready for Test status either, but there should be a push for such teams to play up to 10 one-day internationals a year instead of two or three.

Perhaps Cricket Australia could do worse than give the Irish Cricket Union and Royal Netherlands Cricket Board a call and say “wanna come over to our house for a hit?”

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