Weak teams don't deserve a free ride at World Cup

Sixteen days into this World Cup, and we know as little as we did when the squads were first announced. Despite the merry-go-round of matches, the prospect of a winner is no clearer, nor are most of the pre-tournament questions. Australia’s all-pace battery dominated against the questionable batting line-ups of New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

However, they were handled with apparent ease in the half-innings they managed against class players in Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara before the match rained out.

Whether the strategy will be vindicated or exploited by top-rank opposition remains to be seen.

South Africa have Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers in supreme form, and the most varied bowling attack in the tournament, but their collapse against England yesterday will have the spectre of the choke rattling its chains up and down their hotel hallway at night.

A big plus for them is Pakistan-born leggie Imran Tahir having the impact many were anticipating, vaulting onto the international scene with 11 wickets in his first three games for his adopted country. His is a fee-lgood story to rival Ireland’s.

India have reinforced what we already knew: that their bowling stocks are scarce, that Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag are two of the classiest operators at the tournament, and that their team will rely on a batting onslaught to post indomitable scores.

Sri Lanka have gone quietly about their business, their key batsmen working themselves into top form while the insanely-talented Lasith Malinga has run rampant with the ball.

Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis wait in the wings.

England have imploded as their Australian one-day form promised. Ashes-winning bowlers like Graeme Swann, James Anderson and Tim Bresnan have conceded 292, 338, and 329 in their first three matches, two of those against Associate teams.

While they scraped a win yesterday, it was after crashing for 171.

The only surprises have been Ireland’s ambush of England at the Chinnaswammy, the late flourish of the England-India tie and Pakistan’s position as clear leaders of Group A courtesy of rolling Sri Lanka at home.

The latter have shifted their status from dangerous floaters to genuine contenders with three composed displays. Their recent New Zealand tour saw Misbah-ul-Haq finally click as an international batsman after years of promise.

Along with Younis Khan, he is giving their middle order an unfamiliar calm and stability.

Their progress is despite the predictably dire keeping of Kamran Akmal, a man whose understanding of how to use gloves properly is poorer than Michael Jackson’s.

Akmal would fail any pub trivia question regarding modes of dismissal, because he clearly can’t remember what a stumping is.

Hopefully match-fixers and internal politics can leave Pakistan alone for long enough to make a clear tilt at the title. The talent is there, and after the torrid year they’ve had, a win would be a tonic for that nation’s cricket.

With the cricket largely proceeding as expected, the main talking point so far has been the inclusion of the smaller Associate nations, and their proposed exclusion from 2015’s edition. Ireland’s miracle win has of course inflamed that debate.

It was certainly one of those magical moments in sport, where twenty years later you’ll be able to say exactly where you were at the time.

Cricket at its best gives a soaring trajectory through our full emotional range, and allows for the sudden emergence of the unexpected.

Kevin O’Brien’s innings delivered to the utmost on both counts.

“O’Brien strode to the wicket yesterday with an ODI average of 34, and a strike rate of 75,” wrote Andy Zaltzman of the knock. “Against current Test nations, he averaged 22. In World Cups he averaged 23. His one previous ODI century was against Kenya three years ago.”

“So it is fair to say that if a passing soothsayer had told you that he would reach 100 off 50 balls against an attack containing three of the world’s top 10-ranked Test bowlers, including moving from 5 to 90 in 35 of the more extraordinary deliveries in cricket history, you would have sat him down, mopped his brow, given him a sharp talking to, told him to get a proper job, and poured a cup of iced tea over his head.”

Quite.

And all the more reason to remember where you were when Ireland knocked off the country they most fervently wanted to beat in all the world, and proved they had the ability to mix it with the top nations.

But Ireland’s epic at Bangalore is not the most relevant result in the argument for Associate involvement.

In those stakes it falls behind Motera and Mirpur, where New Zealand beat Zimbabwe by ten wickets after scuttling them for 162, while Bangladesh was humiliated for just 58 against West Indies to be beaten in the space of 187 deliveries.

The victors of those matches were themselves defeated easily in their only World Cup matches against top-flight opposition, by Australia and South Africa respectively.

The upshot is that the lower end of the Test-eligible nations are nowhere near the standard of the top six. Being ferociously beaten with the embarrassment stick is not the sole proprietorial right of the Associates.

Zimbabwe peaked round the time that Andy Flower and Heath Streak led them onto the field, but have gone a long way backwards since.

There are hopeful signs and reconstruction at work, but theirs is a long-term project.

Likewise Bangladesh, whose recent on-field progress has been immensely heartening, but who still have much ground to make up. Neither team is at Test level, whatever their official standing, and their one-day abilities are consequently weaker.

New Zealand are also less competitive than ten years ago: they had something of a golden era early last decade, but their tiny player-pool has seen them struggle to replace those players.

The West Indies continue to fade as cricket loses popularity to football and a disparate colonial grouping struggles to find relevance in the modern era.

The question is, why do any of these teams deserve an automatic place at the World Cup ahead of anyone else with the desire to play?

Where is sport if the challenger is not allowed to call an opponent out to fight?

Clearly most Associate teams are not at a level to challenge strong cricketing nations. Clearly too many of them being involved will make the contest one-sided.

Just as clearly, the best of the Associates are on a similar level to the weaker Full Member teams. Bangladesh scraped home against Ireland ten days ago. On another night, the result would have been different. Numerous times, it has been.

If the 2015 World Cup is to involve ten nations, then the best of the Associates must be allowed at least the chance of winning a spot.

Sambit Bal’s model has the top four Associates playing the bottom four Full Members in a qualifying tournament, a preamble to the tournament proper.

If a team like Ireland had the form to demand a place from a Test-playing nation, no-one could claim they weren’t up to standard.

Failing that, simply have a twelve-team tournament, with the top two Associates being included along with the ten Full Members. Either option makes more sense than anything coming out of the ICC of late.

Regardless of what happens from here, the Ireland win will be the abiding memory most of us take from this World Cup. As the highest run-chase in the tournament’s history, not to mention the fastest century and the abject position from which the rescue was launched, it deserves to be.

And if that isn’t enough to earn a chance at further glory, then the ICC must have sold their eyes, their ears, their brains, their hearts, and their God-given common sense along with their souls.