The ICC formula applied in other sports

I always thought that the maximum number of teams that are decent enough to make a competitive tournament for cricket is 12. you would of had the 10 main nations and Ireland and the Netherlands (using the most recent tournament as an example). The 2 most recent ones have been jokes, going on for 1 and a half months, where 1 game was played a day for the benifit of broadcasters and stuff like that. Although people like to say that there is no Minnows in the world cup, you need to remember that Zimbabwe and bangladesh where thrashed from here to kingdom come repeatably over the last world cup. I dont understand why the ICC is trying to push the 20/20 cup as its main international form, when most people who watch cricket on a regular basis think the One Dayers are a far better to watch.

What other sport actually discourages up and coming nations from participating. Ireland was THE highlight of the last world cup, it was a magic underdog story, and what makes it that bit more interesting, otherwise it's just bragging rights.

Ben, there are three reasons why I think you are incorrect: 1) On current rankings, 17th is UAE, 18th is Namibia. In the last WC qualifiers both were only a tiny bit away from making the world cup. Namibia was even the I-Cup finalist only two years ago. At 22nd, Uganda has recently beaten both Kenya and Namibia. There are plenty of quality cricketers in the 17-20 bracket and below. 2) The ranking gap from 11th-20th is nowhere near as big as that between 4th and 11th, and non-existent from 13th-18th. There isn't a line you can draw anywhere and say "teams above this are competitive, teams below aren't". To the extent that there is, it isn't likely to remain there for long, and at the moment is, as recalcitrant says below: at 7th or 8th. 3) Competitiveness is relative. That's my point above. In a 10 team cup 10th plays 1st,2nd,3rd,etc. and is uncompetitive in half their games. In a 20 team cup 20th plays 2nd,7th,11th,16th and is uncompetitive in half their games. You might be a little more likely to get a massive blow-out when they play their 1 game against the top 4, but they'll be a good chance of beating the other associates and making the second round. If every team played every other team in a cup then overall competitiveness matters, but they don't. In a larger world cup, more games include two weaker competitors. It might be worse cricket for the aesthete, but it is no more "uncompetitive" than a smaller cup where weak sides play more games against top sides. And as I said, rugby is less competitive than cricket, by the numbers, yet they play 20 teams. Are they wrong to do so? And 4) Who can predict 20 years into the future? Why cite completely meaningless time-frames for things that could be done now if cricket wasn't so hung up on the odd mismatched game? It is the same with test cricket. If Australia can go to England and play some county's 2nd XI over 3 days as a warm-up, they can go to Ireland, Scotland or the Netherlands and play a one-off test match for the same purpose. If cricket had had such hang-ups in the early 20thC and before it would never have developed at all. That's a sad regression in competitive spirit, and it hurts the game.

Ben, why would you say 20 teams is too big?

The Cricket World Cup should go back to only the top 6,7 or 8. To make it a worthwhile tournament again. Why not make the 3 years leading up as proper qualifiers. Use all those pointless one day tournaments, like the VB series, Natwest Series as series that count to qualification. Also make every team play each other home and away in those 3 years, including the top 2 associate nations. So you have 12 odd teams jockeying for position. As it stands now, the ICC World Cup is not even shown on FTA tv in a cricket mad nation like Oz to give you an idea how bad it's current format is.

Ben, I wrote a (joke) post last year about football organised like cricket. Ken, it has never occurred. Football has had 8 winners (Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain) and since 1962, only one other finalist (Netherlands). And despite being a knockout cup, with all the luck that entails, a couple of teams dominate: Germany and Brazil, notably. So the major problem is one of perception. The top 10 (those 9 plus Portugal who have the pedigree) have won 100% of World Cups, 86% of Copa Americas, 69% of European Championships, and their domestic leagues have thrown up 86% of Copa Libertadores and 95% of EC/Champions League winners. That's international sport: unequal. But if you look at the football world cup, those 10 teams play only 26 of the 48 group games against "minnows", so the focus is not on whether Germany or Brazil will qualify for the second round (which they have with only 2 exceptions), but on whether comparative minnows can beat other minnows to qualify. Like football, cricket played at that level (ranked 11-32) is very competitive as the WCL shows. Not that anyone pays it any attention. Sport is largely about aspiration. To be the best, but also to that bit better than you thought you were. It was a very big thing when Australia qualified for the FIFA-WC in 2006, because they had to do it the hard way, and because it hadn't happened for so long. For cricketers in Uganda, or Nepal it would be a very big thing for them to earn qualification for cricket's world cup, and they deserve the chance to do so. That doesn't imply a free ticket, but it does imply a proper qualification process, with a reasonable chance of success: and in most sports, a reasonable chance of success is about 1 place for every 5-6 members. Cricket has 105 members: that is 20 teams. Also, world cups "work" because they build up a narrative of progression, from one stage to the next, each being that little but harder as teams get better, and the number of second chances decrease. For the minnows, their narrative will almost certainly cease earlier than the major teams, but the cup should be structured so they have a reasonable chance of having some sort of narrative. The 14 team cup didn't really do that, because it was near impossible for the weak teams to progress, and too easy for the good ones, with no incentive to win every game. A 10 team league is worse from that perspective. Hence, again, my preference for 20 teams, with 12 moving forward to knockouts, (1st direct to quarter finals); the associate teams aren't there for tokenism, or development, but would have a reasonable chance of making the knockouts. Finally, but not entirely by the by, but the IRB is almost certainly the closest model for cricket to compare itself with. Looking at the statistics over the past decade, rugby's top 10 (tri-nations, 6-nations and Argentina) have played twice as many games per international played, as cricket's test nations do against their minnows, but their minnows win half as frequently. In other words, rugby is a less competitive sport than cricket, yet their debate over world cup size was whether 16 teams would be better than 20! Either rugby is getting their world cup badly wrong, or arguments over "competitiveness" in cricket are largely rubbish.

Ben in absolute numbers, cricket would be the number 2 sport in the world, based on the fact that India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka are nuts about the sport and they have over 20% of the worlds population. As a rugby fan, I would be rapt if it was the number one sport in places with 10% of the world population! However I think crickets future appeal is limited. You will maybe see the sport grow in countries with a decent subcontinental expat community, such as the US and Canada, but will have a hard time growing outside those communities. I also think that Afghanistan needs to be brought into the fold. The other concern is the dilution of international cricket, given we have an annual 20/20 World Cup.

love your enthusiasm for your cricket Ben. its my belief that the ICC is just being realistic in believing that cricket is not going to "expand" beyond its current strong playing nations. but obviously you have a more positive attitude towards crickets ability to "expand". it could also be argued that cricket is the number 1 sport in India which has the same population than Europe and North America put together, so really an expansion into countries like ireland (pop 6mln) and Netherlands(16 mln) is rather small in terms of numbers. on that point , in terms of expansion is it the number of people that play and follow cricket or the actual number of countries that are competive that is more important? hypothetically, if india was to split into 6 nations the way yugoslavia has, would cricket have expanded by having 5 more competitive nations at the next world cup?

agreed ken, comparisons with other sports are not really relevent esp football. Ben, you seem to have a bee in your bonnett about the ICC world cup shedding minnows, this is not your first article on the matter.

I'm not sure there's much controversy really over whether a 10-team ICC World Cup deserves the title 'World Cup'. Surely any tournament that delivered the best national team in the world in it's respective sport at that time deserves the name 'World Cup'. From that definition, only the Soccer WC could legitimately say that a team from outside the Top 10 had a chance at the title, and even then it's a slim argument (when was the last time, if ever, this actually occured?). In RU, Cricket, RL, Netball - the idea that a team outside the Top 10 could win the World Cup is fantasy. So I don't have any trouble with the ICC's proposed tournament deserving the title 'World Cup', the best team will be in the Top 10. That's not to say that the ICC's format isn't controversial but this controversy is over whether it's better for development of the game to allow more minnows. If we don't allow non-competitive teams into the World Cup will they ever become competitive teams? I think that's the real issue.