ICC allows Associates to play in 2015 Cup

Hey Timmuh , I wouldn't be surprised at your assertion about the selfish; short-sighted action by Cricket Australia and New Zealand , however I also have concerns that both them AND the BCCI are making "Full Member Status" a 'closed shop' for no better reason than because it threatens the 'political bloc' of voting factions within the ICC . It is a blatant denial of natural justice to have the power to prevent nations improving their lot just because they were 'there first'

Timmuh, I would argue that Australia has always been the worst offender, refusing to play NZ in a test for 28 years after 1946, not hosting India or Pakistan for almost 20 years over the same period, and numerous transgressions since. Australians have been a great force for global development, but the body representing cricket in Australia has a regressive and elitist attitude unbecoming of the second most senior cricketing nation, historically most successful and third most financially secure. And if Australia (and England), who have nothing to fear aren't willing to grow the game, what chance does it have?

At most World Cups an Associate has picked up a win over a full member. 1975 - neither Sri Lanka or East Africa had a win 1979 - Sri Lanka beat India 1983 - Zimbabwe beat Australia 1987 - no win for Zimbabwe 1992 - Zimbabwe beat England (I think Zim were still Associates at that stage, and received Test status later that year) 1996 - Kenya beat West Indies 1999 - Bangladesh beat Pakistan 2003 - Kenya to Semi-Finals (admitedly partly thanks to an NZ forfeit, but they did beat Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe) 2007 - Ireland drew with Zimbabwe, Ireland beat Pakistan, Ireland beat Bangladesh 2011 - Ireland beat England Yes, there have been thumpings as well and just in games involving Associates; but there have also been other scares for the big boys, the Netherlands came very close to knocking off England this year for example.

I think it you will find it was Australia (more accurately, Chanel Nine) and New Zealand who wanted a ten team world cup, not the BCCI. They didn't really care either way. While the BCCI have certainly forced some poor decisions on the cricketing world, Australia has been the worst ofender with snubbing developing nations - and has been at least since Sri Lanka reached Test status. (That said, the draft FTP reportedly has Australia hostng Bangladesh in the 2012-2020 period, and India not doing so). Anyway, at least some sort of sanity has prevailed with the World Cup. It remains to be seen whether any progress will be made in ensuring the leading Associates get to play a few full member nations on a regular basis and a pathway made clear for progression to Test status - but, sadly, that really is asking too much of many full members.

Oh what nonsense, the average ODI margin is 60 runs, for ALL teams. Let's call that 1-0. There were 3 or 4 200 run margins at the world cup (4-0) and several 5 wicket/30 run margins (0-0) and lots in between. Australia has played top 8 opposition 3 times in the past 2 World Cups: 0-4 germany, 0-2 Brazil, 0-1 Italy (against 10 men). Football is a much more even sport than cricket, and it allows scope for draws (Netherlands-England is a draw in football, as is Canada-Pakistan). But the idea that football doesn't include weak uncompetitive teams and cricket does is plain elitism. And completely irrelevant. If cricket had a bigger world cup, with smaller groups, most of the 1st round games would be between two associates, who are very competitive against each other. The problem with the 14 team cup is that with 4 qualifiers from a 7 team group it is damn near impossible for an associate to qualify, so they have no reason to be there. When they played a 16 team cup 2 non-top-8 teams made the second round, to much complaint (again, daft 2nd round format). If they'd gone straight into knock-outs from the 1st round like FIFA (and every other sport) does, the 2007 cup would have been perfectly fine.

I would like to sat that is a gross injustice for the world cup and 20/20 to be made exclusive to the 10 full member nations -it shows that the ICC and Australia as well as other prominent countries want to keep all the money and power to themselves - a grossly short sighted , manifestly unfair and selfish exercise of which i hope will prove utlimately futile anyway. Also; I want to say it's time for the rest of the world of cricket-playing countries to stop paying servile patronage to the BCCI . Its about time Cricket Australia , Cricket New Zealand and the English Cricket Board developed some intestinal fortitude for the good of the game globally instead of bowing to the almighty dollar . Yours sincerely Mr Matthew Skellett

Not sure if I would call Oz, NZ, Honduras in that category because they do not genereally get beaten 20 - 0. That is the cricket equivalent. They should habe a top 8 that actually plays the World Cup and make teams qualify.

The ideal number should be 12 - let two of the associates qualify and play - the tournament needs to be shortened and avoid having too many blow out matches, lest it lose credibility and become a laughable WC like the League or AFL.

It is, they are called Honduras, North Korea, New Zealand and Australia, none of which had a hope of winning. But, by virtue of a lot of teams, and only needing to break the top-16 to qualify for the second round, each made their contribution to the tournament and had an outside chance of going into the knockout rounds.

Imagine if the FIFA World Cup was padded out with sides like India, Tibet, Equatorial Guinea. This is what cricket has done. Any wonder the cricket world cup is a lame duck tournament that is mainly on pay tv due to lack of interest.

It should be a 12 team competition and only be hosted by Australia. We have enough venues in Australia we don't need the kiwis and their out of shape rugby stadiums (one of them might not be used again ever) and small ovals. Sceptics would say that Ireland are capable of knocking out England and Pakistan thus reducing the amount of bigger nations in the next round. One way to elliminate that threat was not allow Ireland to qualify.

don't get me wrong, i don't like the fact there are so many games, spread out over too many days, but the reality is it's the TV revenue they covet most. Overlapping fixtures doesn't so much add to the existing audience but splits them up. They rather have 1,000,000 people watching 1 game then 1,000,000 split between 2.

Matt, true. But then, if they had more teams they could overlap low-rent fixtures with no issue. That's what they did in '92 after all. Zimbabwe's "famous" win over England was a meaningless - both teams were either out or qualified - game in Albury on the same day as Australia-West Indies played with no tv cameras in front of 5000 people. That's one of the reasons the '92 cup is so admired. All the rubbish fixtures weren't on tv.

That is the most painful part of the ICC world cup. The thing goes for 2 months of the year. Back to numbers though, i always thought that the 1999 world cup was perfect with the 12 teams, 2 groups of 6, and i think it took a little over a month. I would of preferred a knock out at the end of that, rather than the drawn out super 6. The 2011 one actually repaired the damage that farce of a tournament in 2007 caused.

Exactly, heightened levels of excitement for a shorter period. The Olympics is done in two weeks for example!

It's all to do with TV. Tthe difference is at the FIFA World Cup you can show 3 games a day starting one after the other with no overlap. In Cricket you can only have max 2 a day and even then half of the game time overlaps. They could cut down the number of games but that would decrease TV revenue

i didn't mind the 10 teams necessarily. It was more the issue that there was no opportunity for others to qualify. if teams 9-14 had to qualify against eachother I think it could have worked well. Though i did laugh that they said it was to reduce the number of games only to reduce it from 43 to 42! That and the fact Ireland are ranked higher then Zimbabwe but weren't included for some reason. 14 is probably a few too many. They should cut it down to 12 but then they'd probably have to cut the number of games which they don't really want to do...

Richard, it is simple, they don't play knockouts (too dangerous, might lose an important team) and they don't overlap fixtures unless they involve weak teams. Wimbledon gets through 127 games and 128 competitors in 14 days. FIFA plays 3 or 4 games a day for 15 days to get rid of their "minnows" and then plows into knockouts for the remaining 15 games. After the first round a bunch of writers complain that it hasn't been a very good world cup, the games haven't been that close, that well attended, or that high a quality, and then the tournament proper starts and noone cares.

Chris, you are right, it is a disastrous move, but for cutting the WT20, not the ODI WC. Please explain how a 10 team world cup with every team playing 9 games (each at least 3 days apart) will be stream-lined? It would have had 48 games (compared to 49 with 14) and taken 42 days (compared to 43). Yay for stream-lining. The tv companies insistence on no (or very few) overlaps is what made the previous formats longer. The minimum length of a 14 team world cup is 35 days, for a 20 team cup it is just 34 days - more teams means more scope for overlap, and smaller groups - but if there are no overlapping games the world cup will take as long as the tv company wants. The 10 team proposal had nothing to do with stream-lining, and everything to do with guaranteeing India 9 games. And with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe playing in 17 of their own, it wouldn't have been either competitive or particularly interesting once they had no chance of qualification. Not that the ICC is actually approaching the problem logically. 14 teams in 7 team groups is an equally poor format.

Great post and I do agree that for cricket to remain a relevant world sport the ICC does need to ensure that the 'smaller' cricketing nations get to compete on the world stage, however, does the competition have to stetch for 43 days? The FIFA World Cup in South Africa they managed to complete between 11 June and 11 July - how do the ICC manage to make their World Cup such a drawn out affair?