“The ICC has a strategy to have more competitive teams playing at the highest level,” the words of ICC Chief Executive David Richardson but are these words actually genuine or are they just some do good words for the listening ears at the Asian Cricket Council conference in Sri Lanka.
Richardson says the ICC wants 15-16 teams playing at the top level on a regular basis. The first point is if you want more teams at the top, why restrict the number of world cup teams?
The 2019 World Cup has drawn widespread criticism with the ICC reducing the number of teams from 14 to 10 meaning that there could be no associate nations at all in the tournament.
At this stage the top eight nations of the ODI Championships automatically qualify for the 2019 world cup, with the bottom four nations having to qualify for the World Cup through the World Cup qualifying tournament that will be played in 2018 in Bangladesh.
At this stage based off world rankings, the four nations that are forced to qualify are the West Indies, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Ireland. This could mean that if the West Indies and Zimbabwe fail to qualify for the tournament, that a Test nation could miss a world cup and reversely it could be the first time an associate nation could miss the World Cup.
The World Cup-qualifying tournament sees will see six other nations join the four listed above have to qualify for the tournament, these teams include Papua New Guinea, Netherlands, Hong Kong and Scotland who are the current top four of the World Cricket League, as well as the two sides from ICC Division 2.
So if the ICC wants to promote the game and expand the number of teams playing at the top level why are they restricting the teams that can play in the World Cup? The answer to that is something that only the ICC can explain, but if teams are to play at the top level then how do they get the experience.
At this stage the only side with a semi-regular chance of playing against Test nations is Ireland but these are usually only one or two matches before a series as a “warm-up” for nations who are to play a series against England.
However baby steps are being taken for other nations with Afghanistan playing regular series against Zimbabwe in which Afghanistan have been dominating. The next big step for Afghanistan comes in 2017 with a full tour of the West Indies to take place which will involve five ODIs and three T20s.
While it’s good for the Afghan and Irish side to play these matches, there is virtually nothing for the associate nations outside of major tournaments and while this keeps happening the gap grows. A lot of people remark on how good the associate teams fare at the World Cup but soon after these teams are forgotten about.
The question is how do we develop the associate nations? Well the obvious answer is more games against Test-playing nations. This is actually something that can quite easily happen with one or 2 match “series” against nations in the same region happening.
This for example could see Pakistan play two ODIs against Papua New Guinea before or after their tour of Australia and in turn teams that travel to England play against either Scotland or the Netherlands in matches.
This will only benefit the associate nations because as they get more experience the better they will grow and rather than fill the extra spots they can be competitive.
To better clarify this, take the July cricket schedule.
England host South Africa: this can see South Africa warm-up for the series with competitive warm-up matches against either Scotland or the Netherlands. These both benefit the South Africans through competitive play and the associate nation they are playing gets more experience against a top nation and their players – and games don’t stagnate over time.
Other examples for July include.
West Indies hosting India – India v Canada
Bangladesh hosting Pakistan – Pakistan v Nepal
Sri Lanka hosting Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe v UAE or Hong Kong.
Another option that could be used for several teams is the inclusion of the associate nations into both the first class and the List A competitions.
This will give the players experience in higher level competitions against better players. The introduction of associate nations into the domestic competitions of Test nations can be a big step because it will allow players to gain more experience playing against and with some of the game’s biggest players.
It will provide the experience that comes from competitive cricket in some of the premier divisions will be invaluable.
The way to do this is to ensure that associate nations are involved in the domestic competitions of Test nations as in the same way Cricket Australia created the CAXI for the Matador Cup.
The same can be done to introduce Papua New Guinea into the Australian domestic competition.
Examples of how associate introduction can work.
• Papua New Guinea and Australia
• Hong Kong and NZ
• Nepal and India
• Namibia and South Africa
• Canada and West Indies
• Netherlands and England.
These options might only be a pipe dream that will never happen, but if the ICC is serious in expanding the number of teams at the top there are so many options that the ICC can take.
This must start with immediately granting Ireland and Afghanistan Test status, but if not then integrate these teams into the top level over a five-year plan and get to the intended 15-team top level competition.
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