Former West Indies Test star Michael Holding believes the World Cup will
be devalued by the number of non-Test playing nations taking part. The fast bowling
legend insists that only the top-ranked Associate country in the world should
be allowed to take part. 
When the 2007 World Cup gets underway in the Caribbean
on March 11, there will be six non-Test teams involved, seven if Zimbabwe,
who have temporarily lost their Test status, are included.
“I do not believe the World Cup should go on for as long
as it does (almost two months) and that is partly because there are far too
many teams in the competition who are not good enough to be there,” the
53-year-old told the Royal Gazette.
“I’ve argued about this with the ICC for some time.
I simply do not believe that if you come fourth in the ICC Trophy that
you should be entitled to play in the World Cup.
“It does not make sense to me. What is gained by a team
playing in the World Cup and getting absolutely hammered? In my opinion it is
counter-productive.
“What I believe should happen is that all the non-Test
playing nations should continue to play amongst themselves, to have their own
competition where only the top-ranked country goes through to the World Cup.
“I see nothing wrong with giving the smaller teams the
odd tour and a few games against the bigger teams from time to time. And I think
the ICC should continue to invest in non-Test playing nations to improve their
cricket and their infrastructure and things like that. “But it’s a
big jump from that to having six non-Test nations all playing against the cream
of the crop. It’s not good for cricket.”
The 16-nation tournament will include Scotland, Netherlands,
Bermuda, Canada, Kenya and Ireland, all of whom
have yet to play Test matches.
Meanwhile, Holding insists that the marathon tournament will
be a success despite ongoing problems with stadium construction, soaring hotel
prices, visa problems and reports of sluggish ticket sales.
“There have been some problems in some aspects of the
preparation, but the logistics of organising a World Cup which is spread out
over a region made up of many sovereign nations, with different laws, governments
and currencies, was always going to be hard,” he said.
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