 There may still be good news for the ICC Associate countries. According to a latest
ICC announcement, there is a chance that the Associate countries may be allowed
to play a qualifier to have a chance of qualifying for the World Cup 2015. Earlier,
it had been announced that the 2015 edition of the World Cup to be played
in Australia and New Zealand will have only 10 sides and these will be
the ten Test playing nations, effectively shutting out the rest of the Associates
like Ireland and Netherlands. The cricket committee of the International Cricket Council (ICC) said that the sides should be given a chance to be able to make
it to the World Cup 2015.
The plan earlier, announced by the ICC, immediately after the completion of the
World Cup 2011 was to have only 10 full nations in the 2015 World Cup and have
the qualifiers only for the 2019 edition of the tournament.
This led to a huge issue amongst the fans and the Associate countries who claimed
that they were being targeted unfairly for monetary reasons and that by excluding
them from the World Cup, their growth could well be stunted.
In the previous edition of the World Cup, there were 14 sides who participated
and were divided into two groups of seven each. However, there were at least
two or three teams which played like they were just making up the numbers, including
a full-nation in Zimbabwe.
With the widespread criticism of the issue, the chairman of the ICC, Sharad Pawar, promised that the decision will be reviews at their next meeting.
This is what seems to have happened and it now remains to be seen what is the
final decision that get taken.
There was a two-day meeting of the cricket committee, and it was said that there
will be a qualification series for the World Cup but it is yet to be seen whether
the same will be accepted and if so, which will be the sides involved. Trent Johnston,
the Irish skipper is one of the members of this committee.
|
