The outfield of Dharamsala’s Himachal Pradesh Cricket Stadium is swathed in tarpaulin. Aptly-named floodlights try their best to illuminate the soggy field.
The sky is a thick grey, the stands empty, and the Netherlands’ cricket team sit in their dressing room contemplating what might have been had the rain been more favourable than the ICC have proven themselves to be.
For the Netherlands it was the end of the road for their World T20 journey. A gallant defeat at the hands of Bangladesh meant that this game had become a must-win for the Europeans.
Meanwhile, the opponents, Oman, were on a high following an upset victory over Ireland. But the rain had set in, the match was abandoned without a ball bowled and a single point was awarded to each team.
Technically, this match was a part of the World T20 tournament’s first round. What was the grand opening of this festival of cricket? The pièce de résistance that is Zimbabwe versus Hong Kong.
Traditional rivals come none more fierce. Who else starred? Well, Scotland, umm Afghanistan, did I mention Oman? Not present were India, England, Australia, South Africa, need I go on?
You could be forgiven for thinking this tournament has just started. Associate cricket is seldom given back page spreads in the tabloid press. And yet if you were to ask the ICC, they’ll tell you the World T20 has been chugging along for over a week.
A special associate-heavy round to kick off the shortest form’s showpiece event. Eight teams, only two will earn the right to enter the second stage.
A bleak secondary qualifying stage by any other name…
Six of the eight nations had already once qualified to be here. Through the exhaustive World T20 Qualifier, six teams were deemed fit to take on the world. Greeting the qualifiers at the beginning of the tournament was the chance to once more qualify to play full member nations – nations that are exempt from the whole qualifying process.
It’s almost a truism to say that cricket is the only sport in the world actively trying to narrow its member base. This casting of associates into a junk pile on the side of the highway to TV rights is just the latest example of cricket’s governing body shaking off the sport’s burgeoning nations.
2015’s Cricket World Cup produced some of the most stirring performances from the formerly-derided minnow nations. Bangladesh breezed past England and into the quarter finals, while Ireland threatened to pip the West Indies for a knockout berth. And while all of this was happening the ICC were quietly plotting a smaller, less-inclusive World Cup.
There is no question that the World Cup needed its flab trimmed, its middle parts were long and could have tested the patience of even the most ardent subcontinental fans. But when so few teams play over so many days, perhaps rejigging the schedule should have been the council’s first order of business.
Cricket’s contractionist council point to a sixteen team World T20 and say ‘look, we’re actually expanding the game’. But it is difficult to take this limping start to a tournament seriously. At best, it’s an entree. An entree that nobody knows exists.
At the same time that associate nations were shouting for attention – the attention of fans, the media, anyone – full members played meaningless warm-up matches in front of actual crowds. Their path into the second round guaranteed. They would wait at the gates for their two associate adversaries to arrive, having finally been deemed fit to take part in the tournament proper.
The narrative through all of this is of course the widening gulf between the top tier nations and those pleading to be included. The notion, it seems, is that a winning team should never waste its time fraternising with a losing team.
Instead of fostering inclusion, the game’s powerful are treating the sport as if it were the NFL, their nations like franchises. Any further expansion to the game’s base viewed not through the lenses of opportunity, but as a threat to a finite pool of fans. If only the West Indies could relocate to Ireland and rebrand themselves the Ravens.
It is an alarming reflection of a world with quickly disappearing empathy. Where the people making decisions are the rich who believe they inherently deserve to be rich. Those at the bottom are the poor who must inherently deserve to be poor. Our gentlemen’s game is being steered by the game’s equivalent of the one per cent.
One of the things threatened in all of this is an idea both at the heart of the sport and utterly confusing to many outside of it – great thinkers from Bill Bryson to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Casey Jones have been confounded by it. It’s the idea that the match result is not the most important aspect of playing.
So much so that a draw is not only acceptable, but at times considered a victory given the right context. The joy of gameplay traditionally the most cherished part of the game.
Creating the mindset that losing teams should not play winning teams because the result is a foregone conclusion means acknowledging a shift in the importance of a victory. If a minnow has no chance of winning the World T20, what are they even doing here?
With the trimming down of the World Cup, the holy grail status of Test matches and the qualifying process of this T20 tournament, the ICC have ensured that associate nations are condemned to an existence of only playing each other.
Forever on the horizon is entry into a serious competition or an upgrade in their status. But when teams are considered subpar for having no success against higher tier teams; and the opportunities to play higher tier teams are not forthcoming because of a lack of success against higher tier teams. You can see we have an annoying – and rather wordy – conundrum.
For the Netherlands and Oman, they’ll have to wait until another long-winded qualifying stage pops up. With flashes of promise shown early on by the two nations, it’s a shame that the ICC didn’t at least have the foresight to schedule some extra days for washed-out matches.
If nothing else, it may have shown the ICC can at least pretend to care about the associates’ results.
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