A Black Day for Bad (and Green) Sportsmen ....

*It took the Irish long enough to whinge*

'An absolute black day for the sport'
by Andrew McGlashan, April 4, 2011

There will no repeat show from Kevin O'Brien at the 2015 World Cup © Getty Images

Warren Deutrom, the Cricket Ireland chief executive, has slammed the ICC's decision to trim the next World Cup to just the ten Full Members nations, describing it as "nothing short of outrageous". ....

Well he would, wouldn't he?

Bad for cricket but good for England.

Bad day for cricket actually - this is just an attempt to keep a cosy little club going at the so-called apex of the game. 16 teams in 4 X 4 groups: 2 games played per day. The whole thing would be over in 4 weeks maximum. The ICC are in danger of turning the World Cup into a glorified Champions Trophy.

It's a joke, Ireland are clearly better than the Zimmers. I would've thought a 12 team tourney was just about perfect.

I'd fancy Ireland to beat Bangladesh in a series away from the land of the Bangle. The damage this proposal could do to the Irish game might be ruinous.

Indeed, pretty scandalous.

At least no matter how sh!t we are it's now impossible for England to be beaten by an associate country at the next WC.

The decision does seem to be somewhat shortsighted.

It's crazy that they don't even give them the opportunity to qualify. They're no worse than Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, more than competitive against England or the West Indies, and capable of surprising any of the others on their day. I'd back them to turn over a major nation in any qualifying tournament, that's obviously what the organisers are worried about...

They're paying for the failures of other minnows, it's a case of one extreme to the other.

The issue here is not having qualifiers.

A 10 team World Cup will actually be very good for the game (although I'd have thought 12 would strike a good balance). Cricket has eight competitive teams and it would be great to see them going at each other like they did in 1992.

Weighing down the tournament with token attempts to spread the game just makes for a lacklustre event that fails to really help the associate nations.

Qualifying matches are the answer. Have everybody play them in the year before the World Cup - it would give the likes of Ireland more regular competition against the best.

In short:
Decision to reduce the number of teams in the World Cup = Good.
Decision to shut out the associates from qualifying = Bad.

Yeah, Kenya and Canada brought very little to the tournament this time, Kenya's decline is a shame really but the Canadian team barely featured a home-grown player anyway and will have done nothing to promote the sport in that country. 12 teams would be the right amount, would realistically mean we would get Ireland and one other from the associates, that final place would be very keenly contested between a number of teams. But the decision's clearly been made to marginalise the associates to only play T20 at a global level.

The Irish players already move across to England for the opportunity of Test cricket, now even those with no realistic prospects in that regard will be looking for the move in order to play in another World Cup.

Can't the ICC get anything right? They get rightly criticised for having too many associate teams in the World Cup, and then they go too much the other way and get rid of the feel-good team and almost everyone's second favourite.

Henry wrote:Can't the ICC get anything right?

No.

It really is just that Zimbabwe will bend over, pull their pants down and allow themselves to be right royally ****** by all the crinkly little knobs from the BCCI? I can really find no other explanation.

They are ranked 11th in the world.

They were utterly thrashed by every Test nation at the World Cup

The previous World Cup to this one Ireland knocked them out in the first round.

They have no fans

They generate no TV revenue

Their cricket team has been going backwards for the last 10 years

Their best players emigrate to play FC domestic cricket

Mugabe siphons funds from the ICC to prop up is crooked government

Most developed countries put diplomatic pressure on their teams not to tour the nation as it is legitimzing a brutal and repressive regime

This move symbolically removes all hope for associate nations like Ireland and Afghanistan to compete in a World Cup for 8 years and is the death knell for crickets hopes of becoming a global sport.


Why, why, why? It makes no sense on any level. There's no money in Zimbabwe, there's no moral reason for them to be there, no sporting reason, no statistical reason. Sometimes I wonder why I like this ****** sport so much when we allow it to be governed by a set of ****** idiots.

JKLever wrote:It's a joke, Ireland are clearly better than the Zimmers and England. I would've thought a 12 team tourney was just about perfect.

fixed

Appalling decision from the ICC. The Irish have every right to complain.

prolly fixed by the english so they can pinch a few more Irish players to bolster the saffies and yorkies in their squad

FFS, it is clearly fixed by the BCCI. They want the Zim and Bangles votes. The Zims and Bangles don't want to take the risk of pre-qualifying. QED

Pretty disappointing by CA to be associated with this as well given they are the hosts.

Well they were either outvoted or were looking at crowd figures.

Yeah, this is rubbish.

If they want to restrict it to 10 teams, fine, but there's got to be some kind of qualification process.

The one thing the ICC have done right is the WCL. It is a logical, fair structure that enables rapidly improving teams to ascend on their merits. But now it is an escalator to nowhere.

Now we are four years out from the next world cup, and even if Zimbabwe doesn't win a single match in the mean time, even if Ireland or (who knows) Afghanistan take their chances in the rare matches they will get against established teams, we know exactly who will be at the next World Cup.

Where does the ICC find people who think this is the way to go?

OP Tipping wrote:

Where does the ICC find people who think this is the way to go?

This is a rhetorical question, right?

BTW, this is first time since 1975 that there has been NO qualification process for the CWC. (The two non-test teams at 1975 were "invited"). It's the first time there has been no chance of a non-test side at a WC.

For CWC 1979, the top two teams from the ICC Trophy qualified (Sri Lanka and Canada)

For CWC 1983, the top team from the ICC Trophy qualified (Zimbabwe)

For CWC 1987, the top team from the ICC Trophy qualified (Zimbabwe)

For CWC 1992, the top team from the ICC Trophy qualified (Zimbabwe)

For CWC 1996, the top three teams from the ICC Trophy qualified (Kenya, Netherlands, UAE)

For CWC 1999, the top three teams from the ICC Trophy qualified (Kenya, Bangladesh, Scotland)

For CWC 2003, the top three teams from the ICC Trophy qualified (Namibia, Canada, Netherlands)

For CWC 2007, the top five teams from the ICC Trophy qualified (Ireland, Bermuda, Scotland, Netherlands, and Canada)

For CWC 2011, the top four teams from the Qualifier qualifed (Ireland, Kenya, Netherlands, Canada)

And in 1992 they managed to re-organise the entire WC in a couple on months to get SA in.

" Where does the ICC find people who think this is the way to go?


This is a rhetorical question, right?"



Well no really ... what goes on at the meetings?

At how many sporting events called a "World Cup" is there absolutely no qualification process whatsoever?

OP Tipping wrote:" Where does the ICC find people who think this is the way to go?


This is a rhetorical question, right?"



Well no really ... what goes on at the meetings?

At how many sporting events called a "World Cup" is there absolutely no qualification process whatsoever?

How many organisations are run by the BCCI?