On Fri­day, their Sri Lankan coach Pub­udu Das­sanayake said the move was a "se­vere set­back." Rizwan Cheema, one of their key play­ers, said the 50-over game was a must for de­vel­op­ment. "If you want to look at it from an­oth­er per­spec­tive, you have to have com­pe­ti­tion and give small teams an idea to play against big teams and in­crease con­fi­dence. "Oth­er­wise crick­et will stay in nine coun­tries. We all aim for Test sta­tus be­cause crick­et re­al­ly changes when you get to that lev­el," he told ES­P­N­cricin­fo. "It's not a good feel­ing, be­cause at As­so­ciate lev­el we haven't re­al­ly got any­thing else to play against big teams." The most mem­o­rable re­cent As­so­ciate per­for­mances in the tour­na­ment in­clude Kenya's semi­fi­nal run in 2003 and Ire­land's per­for­mances in the 2007 edi­tion. -Os­man Sami­ud­din is Pak­istan ed­i­tor of ES­P­N­cricin­fo