In recent weeks there have been countless arguments going on at workplaces, on internet forums and in the comments of sport websites like this one about the pros and cons of having a 10-team World Cup in 2019.
In recent days we’ve seen irrefutable evidence as to why reducing the amount of participants in the next instalment of the World Cup is a stupid, selfish, money driven decision which there is absolutely no doubt will be a detriment to the game as a whole.
The ICC have long been known as wanting to keep the status quo in terms of the positions of cricketing nations. The big three (which Australia are a part of) comfortably control cricket – led by the BCCI – and seem very happy with this arrangement.
Adding full members would only cause trouble when it came to voting on ICC issues and scheduling games that on paper wouldn’t look like blockbusters.
But the World Cup has always been a bastion of hope and a chance to stand up for the little guys. Associates, minnows, whatever you wish to call them, have had moments in the sun that are up there with many of the big finals the tournament has provided.
From Kenya’s arrival to the semi-finals in 2003 to Ireland’s defeat of England in 2011 (the former admittedly a perfect storm of luck, politics and some good form), these are some of the fondest memories for many cricket fans.
Even things like Dwayne Leverock’s famous catch for Bermuda or the mere fact that Afghanistan, even with all the turmoil and strife they’ve suffered as a nation, are deservedly here playing in a World Cup, are fantastic and are vital parts of a rich tapestry that make a world cup competition worthwhile.
The ICC seem to be thinking two simple things here – the new format allows more ‘blockbuster’ games of which they believe are a higher quality.
It will also mean that something like the financial disaster of 2007 in which India and Pakistan both bowed out can further be avoided via tournament structure.
The quality answer has proven to be a ridiculous one in the recent days. Even in the first four gamesm the closest one was between South Africa and Zimbabwe. While the Zimbas are a full ICC member, they are most definitely one of the teams who would have their spot placed in jeopardy in a ten-team tournament.
Ireland then defeated the West Indies in what is becoming a regular upset of a Test nation for them at a World Cup after defeating Pakistan and England.
They cruised until the late overs where their lack of experience began to show, but they got the job done. This is a side who have worked their tails off to be granted ODI status and earn a place in this tournament.
They’re also a side who have played a paltry nine ODIs against the top-eight nations in the two years leading up to the tournament. Their captain William Porterfield’s thinly veiled vitriol of their standing is well founded.
There’s no doubt the West Indies are in trouble both off and on the field, but today’s thumping of Pakistan means that credit cannot be taken away from Ireland for the victory any longer.
New Zealand have put on two scintillating bowling displays to have teams out for under 150. One was against an associate nation playing their third World Cup while the other was against the oldest Test nation in cricket.
The associate, Scotland, made New Zealand work for their victory as they limped over the line with seven wickets having fallen in half of their allocated 50 overs. The Test nation, England, allowed the fastest world cup 50 of all time to be struck and the chase was over in less than half the time it was against Scotland.
The two most inexperienced associates (Afghanistan and the UAE) have also both put in respectable efforts so far in their games. It was striking to see how much Bangladesh’s victory against Afghanistan meant to them after Afghanistan had defeated them in an ODI the year before.
It was fantastic to see Hamid Hassan charging in with war paint and a headband on the world stage, in front of many people who would never have seen his side before. Both of those teams may well not make the 2019 world cup.
The quality argument doesn’t sit well when the majority would far prefer a good, tense contest over a side blowing another away. The big games so far have mostly been just that. India versus Pakistan was possibly the most watched sporting event in history – incredible in atmosphere and as an event but the credit has to go to the fans for the spectacle.
The cricket petered out and was hardly enthralling.
The argument that teams should have to do more to qualify doesn’t work either. 16 teams currently have ODI status and 14 of them are in the tournament. Canada and the Netherlands are not included in that 16 and that’s not even to speak of rising nations like Nepal and Namibia. Associate sides grind away in multi-year leagues to slowly move up divisions to even get the opportunity – if they can achieve ODI status given how rarely it is given out then the majority of sides deserve to play.
Some will say that there’s only a small pool of teams who can realistically win the tournament regardless of how many are in there and this is no doubt true. But much like the FIFA World Cup, the journey is often just as important as the destination. This is doubly true for the smaller nations who are not a realistic chance of taking home the trophy.
The scheduling and format has been talked about at length by many. The group stage seeming relatively pointless and overly long is by design and easily fixable with better organisation. Even playing two games every day would make a big difference.
Most of all is the romanticism associated with the associate nations being given an opportunity. We’ve already had plenty of moments this tournament from the sides outside of the top eight and will no doubt have many more before the tournament is over.
A ten-team world cup signifies a desire for a bland, homogenised product, doing the bare minimum to not be the exact same thing as the Champions Trophy. It’s embarrassingly short-sighted from the governing body of a sport that so many people and nations love. There is no way it is a decision that helps cricket grow.
There’s still the T20 world cup, but teaching a nation of young cricketers to only play the shortest version of the game is never going to create a strong base of versatile players to choose from if they ever were to move up to the longer forms.
There’s genuine anger from some but the general feel is a pervasive sense of hopelessness. If two associates are to qualify for the next world cup it will be at the expense of the weaker Test nations who desperately need the funding boost and exposure. There is absolutely no harm in having some games that are lopsided on paper or involving teams from nations with smaller fan-bases.
Such is the nature of a world cup. You get the emotions (both high and low) of a whole sporting nation involved in your tournament.
The ICC have to ask themselves – do we want a true world cup or a status quo cup, keeping the insular nature of cricket at the forefront of its biggest tournament?
Ed Joyce, Ireland batsman: “In the long run, if the game has to go worldwide, then we have to get away from talking about associates and affiliates and full members. We don’t want to differentiate ourselves from Scotland and Afghanistan. We want them to come with us. We want the game to grow and everyone to compete on a level playing field”
Phil Simmons, Ireland coach, said something similar, “It’s hard to understand what we get from getting promoted (up a divison in the World Cricket League). If you want us to improve, then you need to give us more games. That’s why we keep making lots of noise.”
Girik Sehgal
Roar Rookie
Great article mate. Agree with everything you said. I also agree with pjm and strongly believe that the Associates should be playing more 50-over and 20-over cricket against the Test playing nations between the World Cups. Playing against them for a month then not at all for the next 47 months is ridiculous. In terms of raw talent, Ireland and Afghanistan are right up there with the best nations in the world. But they lack experience and they especially lack funding to develop their cricket further. In other news, Nepal is currently building a cricket stadium with a 40000 capacity. They have a strong love for the game like their subcontinental neighbours but again are poor and underdeveloped. There is so much potential for growth. 16 teams in the World T20 is a bare minimum. If Associates get more of a chance to play between the 4 year World Cup cycle, 12 teams may be the way to go in the near future. You only take take one game from India (whose control of the cricket economy isn't going away) but reduce the overall number of games by 12. Finally it's worth remembering that Sri Lanka was for a long time an Associate nation getting thrashed by the big boys for decades before improving drastically and eventually winning the World Cup in 1996. Heck, Ireland will be far more competitive as a Test playing nation than South Africa was in the early 1900's when England and Australia slaughtered them at ease. You need to be patient to grow the game and sadly many people in the ICC lack that patience.
Bondy
Guest
Chris I agree worrying about major spreads in tournaments with supposed minnows is a minimal concern if at all, I recall Germany thrashing Brazil 6 months ago 7-1 in a Fifa Semi Final ? .. Give the lower ranking Nations a fair go. The ICC have a greater concern over the duration of the tournament than worrying about its visual image perceptions with developing Nations .
Ivanna habashidt
Guest
The minnows are having a dig. There's no need for exclusivity otherwise it's not truly a 'world cup'.
aggregated drupe
Guest
Everyone sign this to try and reverse the decision https://www.change.org/p/international-cricket-council-reverse-the-decision-to-reduce-the-2019-world-cup-to-ten-teams
two dogs
Guest
Maybe we shouldn't have the Olympic Games either Chris.
Mahee Hossain
Guest
It's funny how these so called 'minnows' have been producing some of the best cricket in this tournament, certainly better than some of what test teams have produced. Give them a proper chance to grow, and play matches against the higher ranked teams, and in a few years they could be right up there.
Geoff Parkes
Expert
Thanks Dylan, excellent piece. If only the ICC had some real vision and power to stand up to India and harness the potential that undeniably exists. CA also should be ashamed for taking short term financial gain over doing more to strengthen the overall game.
Brian
Guest
If the Afghans had been more experienced instead of playing their 18th game in 4 years I think they would have beaten Sri Lanka. It was only Jayawardene's experience having played more ODI then the whole Afghani XI that saw Sri Lanka home
Really
Guest
So have 3 teams qualify from each group of 5 or 4 groups of 4 with 2 teams from each qualifing like a mini soccer wc there are options
AGO74
Guest
I only watch test cricket and hence have not watched any of this World Cup - except when I was flicking through fox sports yesterday and happened upon what almost would have been (save for a Sri Lankan player going on a hot streak to rescue the game) one of the great World Cup stories of all time. Imagine the headlines that would have created around the world if Afghanistan hing on and won. Looks like the icc are prepared to forego stories like that in favour of protecting the big boys. Short sightedness at its best.
Andy_Roo
Roar Guru
Fair enough on the FIFA world cup numbers Chris, my point was that cricket doesn't have anywhere near the numbers to play a qualifying tournament format. Cricket scheduling has many challenges, especially with the growth of T20 cricket. It's much harder to schedule games now than even 5 years ago. Financial constraints also limit the smaller nations from playing more international matches and this is what needs to be addressed.
pjm
Roar Rookie
Fool's gold. Up till now the development of Associate Members has solely been the WC which is extremely poor. Ireland only played 29 or so ODI's between the last WC and this one. Putting in countries once every 4 years and calling that development is a joke. A solid Associate Member touring circuit needs to be set up to allow them to develop firstly amongst members of their own skill level and then at times against Member nations. Most AM's are positioned geographically close to Member nations and so I think that Members should play their warm up matches against these AM's when touring. Having a smaller number of spots at WC's for AM's will drive competition and development between AM's rather than the 'anyone gets a spot' we have now. Many of these players in this WC won't be at the next WC and the limited games being played between WC's will see the momentum of participating at the WC dissipate. With these changes we will see game hardened AM's at each WC that can mount a real challenge, even more so than now.
mike j
Guest
Having two top 8 teams seeded in each pool with two 'minnows' should largely prevent that, but it seems the ICC is more concerned with gouging every cent they can get out of the current game than with growing it into a true world sport. Reducing the number of nations competing in the WC will only increase the hegemony of the 'Big 3', who have sadly proven underwhelming custodians of the game.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Actually, there are currently 209 FIFA member nations, and therefore about 15% actually qualify for the tournament, and because it's grouped geographically, it's quite possible that teams that just miss out in stronger confederations may actually be much better teams than some that qualify in weaker confederations. While the ICC often talk about expanding the game, in reality they are more about protecting what they've got. They want the main teams, especially India, to play as many games as possible. This means having a long group phase. It's got nothing to do with the number of teams in the tournament, and everything to do with TV revenue. It's highly likely the 10 team WC will be a full round-robin where every team plays every other team. This will mean that even if India didn't make the knockout phase, they'd still play 9 matches. The preliminary stage would have 45 games compared to the 42 in the current tournament, and if they just had semi's and a final, compared to the current quarter finals, that would mean the whole tournament would have one less game played in total. So going to 10 teams certainly isn't about shortening the tournament or reducing the number of meaningless games. But rather, out of a tournament of the same length with the same number of games, getting more games played by the teams that earn the most money on TV rights!
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
What the ICC really don't want though, is for a team like India, for instance to be able to get knocked out having played just 3 games. So they'll come up with a format that involves each team playing as many games as possible. The result will likely be that while they go to a 10 team tournament, they'll do a single group round robin against all other teams before having quarter finals or something like that and the tournament will actually have more games rather than less than the current 14 team WC has!
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
I've just tried looking up what sort of format is proposed for this 10 team world cup, and it doesn't look like it's been decided yet, but one thing mentioned was the possibility to bring back a format similar to the 1992 World Cup where all teams played each other in a round robin format. That would mean that prior to any knockout matches each team would play 9 matches. That would almost certainly mean more total matches played than the current format, not less! The way to reduce the overall number of matches is simply to make the groups smaller, not the total number of teams. 3 groups of 5 feeding into some sort of super 6, or 4 groups of 4 feeding into quarter finals. To reduce the length of the tournament though, you don't even have to reduce the number of games. Playing one match per day during the week in the group phase is crazy. Especially with it in 2 countries. Have 2 a day through the week, like they do on the weekends, and your group phase is over in 3 weeks instead of just over 4.
Andy_Roo
Roar Guru
There's no doubt that the associate countries need to play more often and against better quality opponents in order to improve and grow the game. Hopefully this will be addressed with better scheduling, but with every country tyring to fit in its own T20 competition and attract overseas players this is even more difficult than ever before. Football's world cup has over 100 teams playing to qualify of the world cup finals. The finals are made up of the best 25% of those teams and the quality is always high. Cricket doesn't have enough teams to play a qualifying and finals type basis. Neither does either rugby code for that matter. So obviously more teams need to play in the cricket world cup. But how many more? 10, 14, 16? Many formats have been tried over the last 4 tournaments and I don't think we have found the right one yet. I am in favour of trying a ten team format, but ONLY if all the teams play often enough to ensure that the best teams qualify. This means getting the scheduling of international cricket right so that all team play regularly. The costs and funding of these regular international matches then becomes an issue.
mike j
Guest
16 teams in 4 groups of 4 would make more sense. 6 games per group gives 24 in the pool stage as opposed to 42. Two teams from each pool go through to the quarters. Top 8 ODI teams would be seeded. Too obvious, though. Monkeys run the sport. What? I didn't say 'monkeys', I said 'teri maa kis'.
fiddlesticks
Guest
minnows and associates seem to be the pride of cricket supporters desperate for their code to get more global recognition at the chest beating table that the Roar has become
Freycinet1803
Roar Rookie
I agree the world cup is way too long ... the scheduling is farcical. But I would suggest increasing the number of teams instead of decreasing. Have 16 teams. 4 groups of 4. The top two from each make it through to a quarter final and so forth. The problem with the current set up is that a team like England, who have been thrashed by Australia and NZ will still make it through to the knock out stages. That is an absolute joke. If they only had three games in the group stage every game would count and there would be a lot more interest in every game. As it stands the pool stages are next to pointless.