The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided that they would narrow down the showpiece Cricket World Cup event to just 10 nations for the next event in 2019 in England.
This decision has been met with great resistance and there is a petition that has close to 20,000 signatures on it, which is calling on the ICC to rethink this move.
There are 14 nations at the current event and this means that six will be missing out come next World Cup. The regular ICC full members West Indies, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, will be the ones battling for supremacy.
At the current World Cup, the minnows and this time Ireland, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Afghanistan and Scotland all created great excitement during their matches. Ireland took it further and defeated two Test playing full member nations in West Indies and Zimbabwe. They narrowly missed out on qualifying for the quarter-finals and this from a team that played just nine ODIs (One Day International) in between the 2011 and current World Cup.
The ICC is saying that they want to make the event more competitive but what really is there role? One would have thought that it a two-fold. While, they are there to protect the integrity of the game, they must also look to grow it as well.
I now understand why football is the most popular sport in the world. It did not happen by accident. FIFA has made it spreading the game one of its core values and this is why you have so many nations kicking ball.
Is the ICC trying to say that the 32 teams that compete at the FIFA World Cup are all close in quality? So FIFA does not care about quality football? Yet we have teams that are not as fancied making it to the FIFA World Cup and benefitting not only the sport in their country but their human development as well.
We all know what going to the FIFA World Cup in Germany in 2006 did for all of us in T&T. Ireland captain William Porterfield said the ICC should go to Ireland during the six-week period of the World Cup and look at the impact the game has on the nation.
In an ironic twist, the ICC actually tweeted the following response to Ireland at the end of their campaign earlier this week "Ireland cwc15 was a memorable and inspiring one." Of course Porterfield crashed them for six with a response which stated "ICC so memorable and inspiring that you have decided to cut the next WC to 10 teams. What is your vision for the game of cricket?"
The ICC's next annual meeting takes place in Barbados from June 22 and there will be delegates from the Associate nations among the 50 that will be attending. This is sure to be at the top of the discussion and don't be surprised if the ICC goes back on its word and include the minnows for the next World Cup.
If they need encouragement they are getting that from the legends of the game who are making a call for the game to spread around the world. Former Indian great Sachin Tendulkar is among the most notables to have lent his support to the Associate stand. He said that for the major nations to play against them every four years is not enough and the ICC should look to encourage them more by making them play international games.
He said that when you want to globalise the game, you need to encourage more and more teams to participate, obviously not at the cost of dropping the standard of play. He said the ICC needs to look at ways for the minnows to improve their standard and one of it is allowing them more matches against the top sides. By reducing the number of teams at the World Cup will only help to stifle the growth of the sport.
The ICC has given Ireland and Afghanistan ODI status but these teams hardly ever get any matches against international sides. The rulers of the game have to help in this process and encourage full members to adopt an approach where they are on board in assisting with the development of the game in these countries.
I must applaud the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), who has been trying their utmost best to get the United States and Canada playing cricket against the territories in the Caribbean. The USA and Canada don't have ODI status, the latter lost its a couple years ago but the WICB who has been given the responsibility of developing cricket in the Americas, has decided that at the regional level, these teams can play and they have been coming to the Caribbean to assist with their development.