ICC gives minnows the finger

The 2011 World Cup in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh could be seen as a success and that is because the tournament had it all.

From some tense finishes such as India versus England and South Africa versus India, there were also some fine performances from both bat and ball. Ricky Ponting’s 104 was a great innings for its sheer bloodymindedness while Mahela Jayawardene’s 103 not out in the final oozed class and calm from every orifice in a losing cause. If it weren’t for MS Dhoni’s ice-cool 91 not out in reply to the former Sri Lankan captain’s effort, Mumbai and Delhi might have been hosting a wake instead of a coronation. There was Andrew Strauss’s 158, his highest ever score in ODIs and the biggest knock of the tournament. Lastly, Kevin O’Brien’s brutal 113 off 63 saw Ireland over the line in that historic win against England. The English also receive a special mention as the tournament’s best actor considering how many riveting parts they had to play till they bowed out in the quarter finals.

Dale Steyn’s 5-50 against India rates as one of the best spells of the tournament, with South Africa’s chief fast bowling protagonist engineering one of the worst collapses seen on an Indian field over the last decade. Wahab Riaz’s 5-46 gave Pakistan a sniff in their semi-final against India, though it proved to be insufficient to take Pakistan to the final. Jacob Oram’s 4-39 (along with his sky-scraper of a catch, which led to the dismissal of the all-important Jacques Kallis in the quarter final) squeezed the life out of South Africa, while skipper Shahid Afridi’s opening salvo of 4-34 for Pakistan in Colombo got their campaign kick-started.

Through all this excitement, including a great final and packed stadiums seen across the duration of the tournament, the ICC has managed, through sheer lunacy, take out the knees of the people who in their own way made this tournament such a success: the non-Test playing nations ie: the Associate members. The ICC has decided to limit the 2015 World Cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand, to a 10-team event where only the 10 Test-playing nations ie: full Members, will take part. So for the likes of Ireland, the Netherlands (Ryan ten Doeschante 119 against England deserved more), Canada and the US, this World Cup will be their last hurrah for quite a while, if not forever.

The ICC has effectively allowed the Associates to approach the main table, heavily based in concrete especially at India’s feet, then suddenly tell them to go back to the children’s table and stay there … or else. Haroon Lorgat has never looked more like an accomplice to a crime then he did when he announced the ICC’s intentions and then their final decision a mere two days after the conclusion of the World Cup. It’s extremely distasteful to the countries that the ICC is charged to help, and the timing of the announcement seeks to make it go unnoticed between the World Cup hoopla and the impending arrival of cricket’s circus, the IPL.

This announcement more than any other goes to show the ICC as nothing more than an empty building filled with empty shirts and suits. The ICC’s offices are based in Dubai, which is fitting considering how horrifically removed the guardians of the game are from their grassroot constituents. It more and more resembles a gentlemen’s club of cricket boards looking out for their own interests and not cricket’s at large, and what is even more galling is that everyone went along with it because the status quo is more suitable to the respective boards’ financial futures then marketing cricket to places other than its traditional strongholds.

Condemnation of the decision has come thick and fast from the different pillars of the cricketing community, except the Test boards themselves, which as this decision has proved, are the only ones that matter. Andrew Miller, the UK editor of cricinfo.com, said the ICC’s decision is “so incredibly hard to countenance. The decision to slam the door shut on cricket’s Associate nations — in particular Ireland, whose role in the narrative was so fundamental — and revert to a 10-team formula in 2015, makes a mockery of the spectacle we have just been privileged to witness”.

Ireland’s captain, William Porterfield, was a bit more blunt in his thoughts, saying that the decision was “an absolute joke. It’s an absolute disgrace and I don’t know how they can even comprehend doing this”. Malcolm Speed, a former head of the ICC, labelled the move as “insular and backward”. Canada’s captain, Ashish Bagai, said it best: “The World Cup should involve as much of the world as you possibly can.” “It’s a shame and very disappointing for players like us who were looking for opportunities to play against the best in the world. That’s the only way to improve as cricketers, as nations. It’s really going to hold back the growth of the game. If they want to keep it to 10 teams, which they want to do, that’s fine, but it’s never going to be a global sport that way.” Graeme Swann, the England off-spinner and future media personality, said they had taken the “World” out of the World Cup.

Bang on the money. As a fan and devoted cricket tragic, it infuriates me to see how the governance of the game has become so spineless and short-sighted that it stymies and retards the spread of the game across the globe. The pithy qualification route the Associates will receive for the 2019 tournament is far too late for this current generation of players. Ireland this year fielded a fully professional squad for the first time, with all-rounder George Dockrell seen as a highly talented player for the future. Now, with World Cup participation eight years away, it’s way more likely that he will seek to qualify for England since Ireland effectively have no greater future then the World T20, which is also nowhere near a form of compensation. Fifty over cricket is effectively their version of Test cricket, especially when playing the Test nations but now, what’s the point?

The ICC has just removed the primary motivator for anyone interested in picking up a cricket bat in an Associate nation and simply put, they couldn’t care less. What happened to the global game? The ICC gave it the finger while their accomplices, the national boards, lined their pockets and moaned about a “stream-lined” tournament. Give me a break.

Cricket fields across the world are now crime scenes as the ICC has seen fit to murder the aspirations of 98 of its members in favour of 10. If this is cricket’s version of democracy, a revolt wouldn’t be unjustified right now.