In 1996, I remember that SA were unbeaten in 1 pool, while WI, barely made it through after losing to even Kenya..... in the qtr final, WI beat SA..... that was SA's "one bad day"...... there was some discussion about this format being not the best, and the ICC went forward with a newer format where the first round was not as "predictable"

But I guess, now we want the predictability back......

1987 - NZ beat Zim by 3 runs
NZ - 242/7 in 50 overs
Zim - 239/10 in 49.4 overs (Houghton 142*, Butchart 54)

2007 - WI beat Scotland by 4 wkts with 1 ball left
Sco - 152/7 in 30 overs
WI - 165/6 in 29.5 overs (target 165 in 30 overs)
WI needed 30 off 3, 14 off 2, and eventually 9 off the last over. This is the closest, in my opinion (after Zim's defeat to NZ by 3 runs in 1987) that an associate came to beating a Test team and lost.

2002-Australia beat Kenya by 5 wkts, with 5 balls left
Ken - 204/9 in 50 overs
Aus - 205/5 in 49.1 overs
Not many people know about this match, and it looks quite amazing given that Australia were not only the world champions at that time, but they would go on to win the 2003 world cup as well, with ease, within 6 months of this game. Australia needed 19 runs off 12 balls with Shane Watson and Brett Lee playing. Ongondo bowled an 18 ball over, and the game was sealed. I dont remember how it became so tight for the Aussies, but both Martin Suji (10-1-22-0) and Maurice Odumbe (10-1-28-0) had a lot to do with this.

2007 - Bangladesh beat Canada by 13 runs
Ban - 278/5 in 50 overs
Can - 265/7 in 50 overs (Barnett 77, Bilcliff 93, Mulla 44)

Sri Lanka beat Zimbabwe by 3 wkts with 4 balls left
Zim - 312/4 in 50 overs
Sri - 313/7 in 49.2 overs
I remember this being on the same day as the Pakistan/WI opening match in the 1992 world cup, but it still got a lot of attention in Pakistan. Zimbabwe batted first to pile up a total, that nobody had chased down successfully before that. In fact, Sri lanka needed 100 runs of 11 overs with 5 wkts left in the end, but a 61 ball 88 by Ranatunga saw them through.

1999 - SA beat Kenya by 24 runs
SA - 220/7 in 50 overs
Ken - 196/10 in 48.1 overs (Tikolo 67, Odoyo 41)
Kenya needed 25 runs off 19 balls with 3 wkts left when odoyo was dismissed followed by a collapse for 1 run.

2006 - Bangladesh beat Kenya by 20 runs
Ban - 231/10 in 45.5 overs
Ken - 211/10 in 49.2 overs (C Obuya 45, Mishra 48)
Kenya needed 24 runs off 2 overs with 3 wkts remaining in the end, but lost all wkts for 4 runs.

2002 - WI beat Kenya by 29 runs
WI - 261/6 in 50 overs
Ken - 232/10 in 49.1 overs
Kenya needed 44 runs off the last 24 balls, with Tikolo batting at 93, but they were all out within the next 15 runs.

1999 - Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh by 3 wkts with 3 balls left
Ban - 257/5 in 50 overs (Mehrab Hussain 101)
Zim - 261/7 in 49.3 overs
Zimbabwe needed 15 to win off 16 balls when Alistar Campbell was dismissed at 97. Bangladesh could not apply enough pressure on the tail to take more wickets.

1999 - Zimbabwe beat Kenya by 3 wkts with 4 balls left
Ken - 199/8 in 50 overs
Zim - 200/7 in 49.2 overs
Zim needed 3 runs from 10 balls, but some tight bowling by Tikolo saw him pick up 2 wickets, with still the 3 runs to get from the last over. The winning runs were scored by Murray Goodwin who made 76, and it was a fumble that saw them make the winning runs.

2003 - Zimbabwe beat Kenya by 5 wkts, with 6 balls left
Ken - 225/6 in 50 overs
Zim - 230/5 in 49 overs
Zimbabwe needed 12 off 12 balls with 5 wkts left, and for some reason, Tony Suji was chosen to bowl the critical 49th. And Heath Streak wrapped it up for Zimbabwe by hitting some big blows.

I have not included one other game in this list, in which Kenya lost to Bangladesh by 2 wkts in 2006 (24 balls to spare), and another in which India beat Bangladesh by 4 wkts and 10 balls to spare in 1998. There was no reason in particular for excluding these games, except for keeping this article from becoming a never ending one :)

There is something quite wrong with this approach. FIFA, in their rankings update in 1999 used to take margins, importance of matches, regional strength and home advantage into account. in 2006, they removed some of these from their system because the rankings were not coming out as accurate.

However, Cricket is not Football. Cricket as a regular calendar and at least the ODI test teams HAVE to be play each other regularly. Even for the associates, to have an ODI status, there is a limit to the teams they would get as opposition. So the reasons why margins were kicked out of FIFA ranking system do not apply to cricket.

ICC's ODI ranking system should be upgraded so that losers can also get points (and essentially get on the table).

The simplest method that I had in mind for this was to award the points to the loser based on this:
1 point for getting 60% of the target, or defending the score till the 30th over (60% of the overs)
2 points for getting 80% of the target, or defending the score till the 40th over (80% of the overs)

The winner will get 5 points for winning the game, and in addition to that, they can take the above mentioned 2 points if they manage to either chase before 30 overs, or dismiss the opposition before they even reach 60% of the target. Of course, the team's relative strength should still be taken into account, and it would not be a bad idea to take the home advantage into account as well.

In fact, it would be interesting to apply this ranking system to the last 2 years of international cricket and see what kind of a table we get.

First of all, the following lines are in bad spirit:

"But Pakistan’s spoiled superstars were beaten fair and square by a dedicated Irish squad who were the better team on the day, and no amount of fiddling with the rules will save them if they and their masters don’t face up to the lessons of that match."

One has to keep in mind that Pakistan was one of the 3 countries that actually supported the ODI status for the top 6 associates, and also convinced the others along with NZ and SA to this change. Secondly, singling out Pakistan, and refering to 'masters' is in fact objectionable. Also, singling out Pakistan, when it is very clear (and it should be VERY clear after the whole 'monkey' affair) about who calls the shots in ICC and International cricket, is also objectionable.

Pakistan can talk about a change in format all that it wants, but it would not really matter. It wouldnt matter even if they were the sole hosts. The loss to the ICC due to an early exit of Pakistan is no more than the loss it would face if it were SA, Eng or Aus who got elimated.

I can give it to anyone in writing, that even if Pakistan had been knocked out like it was, but India had made it all the way to the final, it would have been touted as a very succesful world cup. Secondly, when the Big8 talk about weak teams, they mention Zim and Bangladesh in the same breath. Its not that the criticism is ONLY against Ireland making it through BECAUSE its an associate. The criticism is against the concept that teams that actually have no chance of making the semis are pitched into a 28 game league.

I have discussed this topic and the possible formats etc elsewhere, so I will not go into that here. This posting was just to point out my surprise at Rod Lyall's article, who usually is wonderful and insightful to read.

20 March: Ireland v Bangladesh (ODI)
22 March: Ireland v Bangladesh (ODI)
24 March: Ireland v Bangladesh (ODI) 
28 June: Canada v Bermuda, Canada (ODI)
29 June: Canada v Bermuda, Canada (ODI)
1 July: Canada v Bermuda, Canada (ODI)
1 July: Scotland v New Zealand, Scotland (ODI)
2 July: Scotland v Ireland, Scotland (ODI)
3 July: Ireland v New Zealand, Scotland 
28 July: Ireland v Netherlands, Dublin (ODI)
29 July: Scotland v Netherlands, Dublin (ODI)
31 July: Ireland v Scotland, Dublin (ODI)
11 August: Ireland v Canada, Ireland (ODI)
12 August: Scotland v Kenya, Scotland (ODI)
13 August: Scotland v Kenya, Scotland (ODI)
18 August: Scotland v England, Scotland (ODI)
21 August: Netherlands v Kenya, Amsterdam (ODI)
24 August: Ireland v Kenya, Belfast (ODI)
25 August: Ireland v Kenya, Belfast (ODI)
27 August: Ireland v Kenya, Belfast (ODI)
18 October: Kenya v Ireland, Kenya (ODI)
19 October: Kenya v Ireland, Kenya (ODI)
21 October: Kenya v Ireland, Kenya (ODI)
23 October: Kenya v Ireland, Kenya (ODI)
25 October: Kenya v Ireland, Kenya (ODI)

The six ODI associates will be playing the following number of matches in the whole year. The Ireland number is most likely to go up by 3 when they finalize their Bangladesh tour in March; maybe a little more if they can get a game against SA as well. But the rest leaves a lot to be desired. Canada, Bermuda, Netherlands dont even play Bangladesh or Zimbabwe. Kenya doesnt play Zimbabwe. And in fact, Netherlands plays no games against test opposition. At the same time, while the ICC was supposed to give 2 games against test opposition to the top 2 associates, only Scotland plays England and NZ, but Kenya does not.  

Maybe the ICC is telling the HPP associates to organize the tours themselves on top of these.

Ireland  15
Kenya   11
Scotland 7
Canada  4
Bermuda  3
Netherlands 3

The comparison is almost always made with the success of the 20 20 world cup. It is not taken into consideration that the champions trophy in India, which was actually a similar length tournament, did not really excite "crowds" like the 20 20 world cup did. The ICC trophy in 2006 had all the teams playing in it.

Lets first ask the right question, then we may get a correct answer. The 20 20 world cup was a success primarily because India and Pakistan made it through to the final, and India won some very close games. If 60 percent of the revenue comes from the subcontinent, that is interestingly also where the crowds come from (even in SA and the Caribbean). If the World Cup of 2007 had India and Pakistan making it all the way to the final, beating teams like SA and Australia on the way, then I am quite sure all this talk about the World Cup being too long would not have come about. After all, world cup 2003 was only 3 days shorter, and I dont remember anyone complaining about that in the Indian press.

The tournament format of the 20 20 world cup was a good one, and the same can be kept for 16 teams as well without any problem. Such a tournament can also be finished in 30 days if the ICC is intelligent about it. PCB's argument that such formats are bad because a team can get knocked out on a bad day is essentially wrong. World Cups are about big matches, they are about do or die situations. They are about momments that live forever. Anyone ever complain that semi finals or the final should be made into a series as a strong team can have one bad day and get knocked out in the semis? The format of 2003 was actually very bad, because the minnows were never taken seriously. At least in the 2007 world cup you had to play the games against them with all force. Sri lanka lost to Kenya in that tournament, but there was no consequence, so it is not a known game. Compare that with 2 upsets in this world cup, Ireland beating pakistan, and Bangladesh beating India. Everyone knows about them. And in any case, 2003 format leads to a lot more one sided games.

I have a feeling that the ICC is actually going to be pressed to reduce the number of teams, which will mean that instead of 16, there will be only 14 (2003 format), or perhaps 12 teams (exact 20 20 format). This would mean that only 2 minnows will be participating. I wonder if that happens, whether the ODI status will still stay for the 16 teams, or only be given to those that qualify.

Trust me, you can have a 30 day world cup. But if India and Pakistan, especially India, get knocked out in the first 4 days, then 30 days is going to start looking like a very very long time!

The sad part about this is that it was a reality in your face. ICC lives in a dream world where they think that if a country is given ODI status, the entire country would get up and start watching cricket. They should have foreseen this as the players and the boards have been complaining about this for a while now.

Sometime back, I mentioned that a $1 million/year amount should be given to each of the top 6 associates for the period of their ODI status. Then the expectation would be realistic that they should take the step up. It is not rocket science.... just investment.

About a year ago, we were essentially talking on simillar lines. The occasion in that case was Norway getting into European Div 1, at the expense of Jersey. Norway had, and probably still has 250 cricketers, with all of them being Pakistani expats.

Upon looking at the performance of UAE and Oman in WCL Div 2, I looked up ACC Trophy 2006 results. Saudi Arabia came pretty close to beating UAE, while Bahrain and Singapore both beat Oman, which had almost the same team as they do now. This makes  you ask the question about what would happen in case Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were also in WCL Div 2; would they have upstaged the likes of Namibia, Denmark and Uganda as well?

At some level all of this is very disappointing. Let us, rather sinfully, ignore the fact that UAE was playing 8 born and bred players this time. I will try to explain the thought process without making any judgements on those who think otherwise (that seems to be ICC at this point in time).

Cricket expansion basically means that people of different countries are actually playing the sport. In a game like cricket, which is country based, the team is not a franchise, its a team comprising of players from that country. The team represents a lot of the characteristics of the country by itself, and also the way the game is played over there. In Pakistan, where the game is mostly learnt in the streets, the batsmen will be technically challenged, but with excellent hitting abilities, and great hand eye coordintion. Good spin bowlers will be rare, but pace bowlers will be aplenty ... and very quick. The players are very inconsistent, with the ability to start fighting back from an absolutely hopeless situation, to also sometimes create a hopeless situation for themselves from a position of strength. In addition to that, the stories about the players and their rise to the top are identifiable by the locals, which fosters interest amongst the general public. Most importantly, the fact that the team is made of indegenous locals means that there are enough people playing the sport that the 'expats' are marginalized, because, really, if your team is made up of expats, you cannot go higher than a certain standard.

A promosing UAE u15 player, when asked about what his future plans are, mentioned that his dream is to play for India. Another promising UAE player from the same team (or maybe U17) mentioned that he would like to play for Pakistan. There is a reason why UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia cannot get any crowds to come and watch their games, while Nepal can get 20K people to come and watch their U19 team, and Afghanistan can get 10K people to come and receive the team after beating emerging teams ! A year or 2 back, Maldives gave their team a presidential honour for winning a tournament featuring Thailand and some other asian team. The team was paraded through the streets, with the president coming out to receive them on a red carpet ! UAE players like Khurram Khan can sometimes not get time off from work because their employers ask them what cricket is !

Standard cannot be everything. Common Sense also needs to be used. Countries like Ireland, Kenya, Scotland, Nepal, Afghanistan and Uganda are the 'real' developing sides. They are the ones that have done something right for a while in terms of development, or have something in them which demands a little more attention. Countries like Canada, Oman etc are perhaps not the way forward, or at least, should not be the way forward. ICC always points to the fact that the game historically spread like this everywhere. First of all, something that happenned 150 years back, or 100 years back, does not mean that the world will work exactly in the same way today. Secondly, it was not a successful model. It may have worked in SA and Aus, but it did not work in USA, Canada, Argentina, African countries like Siera Leone/Uganda, and even some Gulf countries, where, the fact that these were not sports played by the locals caused their demise.

About 2 months ago, Pakistan played a 20 20 game against Uganda. I was surprised to see a few people asking about the Uganda team, because they probably read the scorecard and were interested to know about how and why the game was played over there, and what level. I never saw anyone looking at a Pakistan-UAE match seriously, not even those in the UAE (except for maybe Athar Laeeq from Pakistan bowling to his brother, Arshad Laeeq in the UAE team!).

If all of this doesnt matter, then why does Ugandan Cricket excite people more than Oman?

Lets say that Oman gets ODI status..... exactly how are they going to make the next step? They have not reached that level because of sound development or anything like that. The only way they will try to step up is to import 'better' players from the subcontinent.

About 1 year ago, the captain of the Hong Kong cricket team give someone an interview and he mentioned something on these lines as the 'strategy'.

This is about as sad as reading a match report once in a Bermuda newspaper titled, "The Arabs did not let the Bermudans settle and skittled them cheaply".

What Arabs?

Hong Kong beat Malaysia today. Thailand completely outplayed by Oman. Nepal has already beaten Malaysia yesterday.

btw.... why did Bhutan withdraw from the tournament? They were so ecstatic about the win in the qualifiers......

The tournament is taking place in Nepal, and they have a good system in place to bring updated scores. You can check the website here

The top team, at least so far in 2007 (not much of it is left) is..... Kenya !!!.... with 76%

The stats are here 

I think ICC needs to push the big boys to play these associate a little bit more than what is going on right now, because stats have started to mislead.

Recently, UAE, Namibia and Uganda have all beaten Bermuda in some form of cricket. All three feature in this tournamanet. Only Namibia and UAE have played each other recently, with Namibia thrashing UAE at home. UAE may return the favor, but this tells you of their relative strength on Namibian soil, where the WCL is going to be played.

Uganda beat Argentina in WCL Div 3 to get to this point. So far, the news is that Argentina team has been practising very hard for about 4 months now and is in better shape than they were in Div 3.

The relative strenghs of Denmark vis a viz the others is an unknown, and this tournament should provide us better insight into how the teams stack up.

Against Bermuda, UAE fielded a team which had some born and bred UAE players, and young guys coming through the age level teams. This is quite a good omen for UAE. But still their lynchpins are Arshad and Saqib Ali, and Silva, all expats, in fact, cricket related expats. Khurram Khan was missing from the UAE team against Bermuda, I dont know if he made it to the WCL Div 2.

The most predictable standing looks to be the following:

Namibia
Denmark
UAE
Uganda
Oman
Argentina

But this is coming from someone who thought that Argentina were just making up the numbers in WCL Div 3. The spots are based purely on reputation, not on any real evidence, except for maybe Namibia. Hence anything can happen, and that is what is making the WCL Div 2 something to really look forward to.

Namibia is hitting Canada quite hard...... and incidentally, what kind of a Canada team is this? there are like 2 players from the world cup....

Bermuda v Kenya is going on as being quite predictable..... everyone seems to have resigned to the fact, including the Bermudans, that Bermuda is one pathetic cricket team at the ODI level with very little chance of improving barring some miraculous cricketers getting born in their island, and growing up quickly :).... Anyway, they had their shot, qualified fair and square for the status, played their world cup..... I think, unless Bermuda starts beating someone, we should not discuss them anymore.....

Uganda...... great games against Bermuda...... 3 years ago, the Bermuda team beat Uganda by 100 runs...... these days Uganda won a game, and nearly won the first one as well..... I dont think this was a full Uganda team either..... at least the guy who helped Uganda beat Kenya in the 20 20 game was not playing....... neither was Isaneez I think, but Uganda seem to be having some decent youngsters filling the shoes...... none spactacular yet.....

Alex Obanda...... he has been making quite a few runs for Kenya recently, and is probably the true decent find that they have had in a while....

ICC should increase the number of teams in the Intercontinental cup to 10, and include Uganda and Nepal in this cup..... countries like these are going to benefit a lot more by playing in this tournament...... I dont think a 33 year old guy from desi expat Canadian making his debut is going to help Canada that much, neither is all the drubbing that Bermuda gets.....

With the way the current Bermuda team is playing, it would have benfitted Kenya more if they had played Uganda instead ..... ironically, the official ODIs are those that are played against the weaker team in this case :)

The Twenty20 version has, however, appealed to a wider fan-base and has been widely covered in both USA and China, according to Speed.
Where is this wide coverage in the US? I havent seen any higher coverage than anything before. Its the same cricket crazy expats who also watched this world cup. Its not like the mainsteam americans have woken up at 5 AM to watch the final because its a shorter format now.

"It's the perfect vehicle for cricket to develop in new countries. This gives us another opportunity, a different vehicle to go after those different markets.
Agreed. However, ICC has never actually shown that they are interested in mainstreaming the game in the US, Canada, or even in the country that they are sitting in, UAE. So if you are only targeting the expats, then what T20 and what ODI?

"Cricket is already a niche sport in the USA. There are lots of Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, West Indies playing cricket, so we can build on that. Twenty20 is a great opportunity to do that."
Cricket is a niche sport in the US? Isnt there a difference between Niche and Expat sports?

According to Speed, the success of Twenty20 and the shorter duration has already had an impact on the scheduling of the 2011 World Cup which, at this stage, is to last between 35 to 40 days.
Already had an impact? What does that mean? How has the T20 world cup had an impact? Did the ICC not know that the previous world cup was too long? They needed reassurance? The better format for the 2011 WC would be the one that they had in this tournament, with the super 8s being 2 groups of 4, as I have mentioned numerous times in my previous posts.

The next Twenty20 tournament is to take place in England in 2009.
I dont know why it is scheduled after 2 years instead of the regular 4.

T20 is also targetted towards the people who think that 8 hours is too long for a game. I dont really understand that theory though. You dont HAVE to watch the full 8 hour game. You can watch only the 3.5 hour second innings. In any case, once you are addicted to the game, the 8 hour game does not look very long. And you have to understand that Cricket season is not like an MLB season with a lot of games within 3  months. There are only 20-25 games every year, and some of them are not even followed by the fans due to either telecast issues, or timing issues. In any case, the argument is there.

Now we get to the final part. T20 is very non serious cricket. It just is. A couple of bad overs (only 1 if you are Yuvraj Singh) can make you lose a match, and a couple of good overs, from the bat of Jayasuriya, or Afridi, or even the Bangladeshi batsmen can make you win. Once the team gets derailed, there is no chance of getting back. In ODI, if you go down at 50/5, someone can still have a partnership, and perhaps crawl to 210 in 50 overs. Then the bowlers will have something to bowl at. In t20, if you need to score at least more than 120-130, becuase anything less or equal to that, and the side batting second, with 10 wickets, should easily make the target (unless you dont have any brains like SA against Ind).

The other fallacy in terms of defining what is fun in cricket vs what is not is that lots of 4s and 6s will make it exciting. Thats baloney. A close contest makes it exciting, nothing else. And in any case, the contest should be between bat and ball, not bat and bat.

Last year there was the Pakistan India ODI series in which there were some of the flattest pitches that you would ever see. The problem with those games was that safe scores were those in excess of 320. A score of 280 was eaily chased down. Thats stupid becuase if the team batting first has to face morning conditions and goes through 15 overs being cautious, they have just lost the game. They can slam bang in the rest of the overs, and unless exceptional scores are made in those, they have lost the game. All the games were quite boring despite a lot of 6s and 4s being hit.

ICC has recently started that they want to jazz up the ODI by introducing free hits in them. Thats not good. If you want to experiment, things like this, or that super sub rule, should be limited to T20. 50 over cricket should stay with the roots of the game in terms of rules, the only difference being that the innings has been limited to 50 overs.

One thing about Bangladesh. When Bangladesh beat WI, there was someone on Cricinfo who got carried away and wrote "Bangladesh will reach the semi final of t20 WC. You read it first here". This statement is pretty much "in your face" now. Bangladesh dismissed Gayle for 0 on the thrid ball of the innings. Scotland would also have won against WI in the summer in an ODI if they had been able to do that. But the point is, that Bangladesh will probably be able to beat WI in an ODI these days as well, provided that there is some series scheduled. Chances are higher if the series takes place in Bangladesh. ICC has to do more to get Zim and Ban to play WI and Eng, while also getting the top associates to play Zim and Ban. There is no movement by the ICC to do either at this point in time, and thats bad.

So the verdict is, I hate T20 cricket. But it is here to stay. Not too sure about what the older generation said in 1975 when the first limited overs world cup was played. It was 60 overs btw, the game lasted 9 hours.

Meanwhile, BCCI is planning a 20 20 tournament on their own, with England, SA and Australia on board to hold their own leagues and eventually have a champions league. Pakistan is also interested in having their own league as a feeder to this champions league. Maybe Stanfrod 20 20 can be a feeder as well.

That looks like a more promising, and doable future for the 20 20 game. I think at this point in time, I do not see the 20 20 version to be so different from an ODI that there is a seperate championship, that too in the same year as the World Cup. Maybe the World Cup can be restricted to the ODI version, while 20 20 can move forward in the football like, club based, champions league format.

Btw.... India is big enough for 2 seperate leagues to exist, and both be the feeders to the champions league. MLB has both the American league and the National league, 2 seperate leagues running in parallel and then playing off in the end. So I dont think that ICL should be looked at as an adversary, especially if it is limiting itself to 20 20.

All these leagues coming up will also be very good for the promising players from associate countries, who can then play as professional cricketers, albiet in a short form of the game, without having to either 'move on' with their lives, or ..... do the easiest thing these days..... try to qualify for England.

$1 million / year for the top 6 associates......... and the ICC would have put in a system by which top 6 associates should be able to take the step up...... the rest of the pieces are already in place......

See, to me it does not make sense that we do not have a global league for the qualification of the U19 teams. PNG and Bermuda should, in my opinion, not have gotten entry into the world cup just because they belong to different regions. It is better for everyone involved if the 6 best teams represent the associates, rather than 6 from the regions. We could have had a 10 team global league to select the final 6 for the World Cup (or final 5 now that the host has automatic entry). In my opinion, Uganda, Namibia, Bermuda, PNG, Afghanistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Ireland, Scotland.... and one other country (either Canada or Kenya) should have battled to find out the best 6 to go through..... that tournament would have also helped in understanding the U19 stature of the associates a lot better than the regional set up right now......

Kenya
Netherlands
Ireland
UAE
Uganda
(one additional)

Soctland
Canada
Bermuda
Namibia
Denmark
(one additional)

One can see that the second group is easier Bermuda is likely to need only 1 upset vicotry over Namibia to take them through. But going by their current performance against Denmark, there may be a challenge from multiple sides.

So we blamed the ICC for not having a seeding system and hence having lopsided pools in ICC Trophy 2005. But when they put the system in place, it resulted in lopsided pools regardless :)

Morgan, Coetzer etc are not the first choice players for their counties...... they arent the expected match winners....... these guys are fringe players, who generally dont even play in the first teams....... such players cannot demand much...... if it was Adam Gilchrist, he could have asked to be released for a couple of games, because the county would not have liked to piss him off. Morgan, Coetzer, and to some extent, even ten Doeschate, are not the type of players who the counties rely heavily on to produce to the goods......

It is like asking a new hire to rock the boat...... generally, they are in no position to do so, because the organization doesnt value them at indispensable levels......

In the 2007 tournament, Cuba and Turks (a 20K pop country) are going to be included.

There will be no funding for Cuba because of US govt restrictions, but support would be provided in other ways (?)

More interestingly, both Peurto Rico and Dominican republic will also be given this mysterious support, and they are expected to take part in the 2009 competition.

I think this is truly amazing for expansion of cricket, and particularly the Caribbean. One country that for some reason is missing out is Suriname. They are definitely better than Cuba, Dominican and Peurto Rico in terms of standard. I am surprised at why they were overlooked.

You may be seeing a different structure in a few years for this tournament, with the knockout matches giving way to league type matches for the initial stages. I think Stanford would want to have this tournament be at least 3 months long in a season. If somehow he can have that during the summers, it would be the best time for the WI players to not get into issues with the WI international program.

We usually lament how the ICC plays a numbers game, and sometimes talk of countries with 20 K population as if they were China taking the expansion of the game forward. Now we have Falkland Islands, a country of 3000 people! I think 1500 of them are men, and out of those, 500 are between the age of 15-35.

Well, at least it would be easy to spread the game in the country. Probably you can hold a barbeque at some park and they entire player base can participate.

Some of these small countries probably need to be merged into single teams. It is better for their players to play at a higher level, and it is better for everyone else as well. But in this case, what would you merge Falkland Islands into? There is no small country close by that forms a region.

Perhaps Argentina ? :):)

While there is always talk of the lack of oppurtunities for teams to display their mettle in the full national level, I believe the structure is non existant for the A team level. Taking the example of Kenya, Ireland, and Scotland, there is hardly any tour for their A teams to be taking on the A teams of other countries, if for benchmarking purpose if nothing else. Full tours at the A team level may not be possible under the current ICC budget, but at least an annual tournamanet featuring the A teams of 3 weakest Test teams (Zim, Ban, WI), and 3 strongest associate teams (Ire, Sco, Ken) can definitely be done.

The U19 level is better, though it can be improved. What the ICC is missing, and I have mentioned this before as well, is an ICC Trophy type 10 team event from where 6 associates actually go through to the U19 World Cup. It would first of all, ensure that the top 6 teams in the associate world are going in the world cup (no wondering by Malaysia if they were better than the Europeans, and no wondering by Netherlands if they were better than the Africans). Secondly, it would also give the oppurtunity for the stronger regions at the U19 level to get more of their teams through, as opposed to the current structure which is regional based.

Btw..... lot of people have mentioned the fact that the Kenyan team sucks at the u19 level because Uganda and Namibia, 2 teams that did not light the U19 WC on fire either, qualified over them. I would like to point out that both these teams finished the U19 WC over Scotland. So kenya can technically argue that they may be better than Scotland U19!.