Dropping Associate Nations from World Cups is just not cricket

We have just finished one of the great Cricket World Cups that saw deserving winners, exciting matches and left a legacy that has done wonders for this waning format of the international game.

Yet the suits in charge, the ICC, want to change it all next time around. Confirming a decision made before this World Cup started, the smaller nations are to be left out when the tournament heads to Australia and New Zealand in 2015. Instead of including four smaller, associate countries, who in 2011 were Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands and Kenya, the 2015 World Cup will only have the nine Test-playing countries and Zimbabwe.

An ICC press release said: "The Executive Board confirmed their decision made in October 2010 that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand and the ICC Cricket World Cup in England in 2019 will be a ten-team event.”
"The Board agreed that the 2015 World Cup will comprise the existing ten full members."

There is a sense of injustice in this, particularly around the Shamrock nation. Ireland were everyone’s second team, except England’s, last month when Kevin O’Brien hit a match-winning century against the team that has stolen some of his country’s best players.

Fighting a losing battle: Kevin O'Brien smashes a match wining hundred for Ireland against England

That historic win made for an exciting Group B that was open well into the end of the group stages and also earned Ireland a one-day ranking above Zimbabwe.

So, ICC, if you are going to drop the tournament to ten teams then fine, but why not give it a few years and see how everyone has been playing before you decide who they are going to be. Zimbabwe are already falling behind and it is only their cricketing history that has kept them in the tournament, and the West Indies aren’t exactly heading in the right direction either.

In football, apart from the host nation, every nation has a fair chance of qualifying. If the sport adopted cricket’s ideals then it would probably just be the European countries plus Brazil and Argentina contesting the tournament every four years. We may well have not seen the North Korean tears, Ghana’s colourful climb to the quarter finals or, for that matter a World Cup in South Africa.

Some may argue that this is not a fair comparison because hundreds of countries play football professionally, but there are 95 associate cricketing nations who are going to stay as simply associate nations without a fair chance. And if you want a fair comparison, look at rugby. There have only been four different winners in World Cup history but the likes of Portugal, Romania and Canada get to have a go to fight for the Webb Ellis Trophy.

Back to cricket, you may argue that all four of these nations left at the group stage, so in the end we got the tournament we wanted and dropping the numbers will get us there much quicker. But we got there after enjoying some moments for the little men, which is what sport is all about. And why should we defy them these moments if the cricketers in those countries are willing to put in the hard yards under the radar for a slim chance of success every four years.

There were grumbles that the tournament went on too long and dropping the numbers would keep the TV audiences interested, but over a billion people watched the final – and not just Indians, so people weren’t exactly bored of it by last Saturday.

Anyway, the amount of games won’t change because a TV deal for 2015 has a minimum number of matches and the format will change to suit broadcasters. Maybe the smaller countries don’t bring in those sort of viewers that the TV companies want but they are never going to without a fair chance. That’s not in the spirit of cricket.