World Cup 2015 - hope for Ireland and other Associates

[eugene]

In what could be a major boost to Associate teams, the ICC Cricket Committee has recommended there be a qualifying process for the 2015 World Cup after a two-day meeting at Lord's. Though the recommendations are far from binding, the development will be warmly received by the nations who had seemingly been locked out of the tournament by the ICC's initial decision to limit the tournament to 10 teams.

"It's excellent news that another group of people have put their support behind the need for a qualifying process," Warren Deutrom, the Cricket Ireland CEO, told ESPNcricinfo. Trent Johnston, the former Ireland captain, was the Associate representative on the cricket committee and posted his reaction on Twitter. "Unanimous decision by ICC Cricket Committee to recommend to the Chief Exec Committee there be a qualifier for CWC 2015. A great result!"


The Associates were given a lifeline when ICC President Sharad Pawar requested that the tournament's composition be reassessed at the ICC's annual conference in Hong Kong at the end of June in response to strong and widespread criticism. The Cricket Committee's recommendation, which was one of a host of issues discussed at the meeting, could well represent a significant step forward to them.

The logistics of how the qualifying could work are not yet clear and could either be a qualifying tournament or by use of the one-day rankings. Ireland are currently ranked 10th above Zimbabwe. Dave Richardson, the ICC general manager of cricket, did suggest that using the rankings to determine qualification for major events could help add context to one-day internationals.


The matter will now be passed on to the Chief Executives' Committee (CEC) for approval before finally being presented to the ICC Executive Board for approval. As such, any recommendations made by the Cricket Committee will not take effect until ratified and/or approved by the CEC and the Board, both of which are scheduled to meet in Hong Kong from June 26 to 30.


At its meeting on April 4, two days after the World Cup final, the ICC board had decided to allow only the ten full members in the 2015 edition to be hosted in Australia and New Zealand, a decision greeted with incredulity by both the boards and cricketers of several Associate nations.

[nochp]

Guys ireland is not better than Zimbabwe they are just above Zim in rankings due to the following reason

They continue to play ODI's against England and Australia which is more practice and experience for them and as for us i do not remeber the last time we had an ODI series against these teams.The day we get fair treatment yu will understand the point im putting across

[Maweni]

Don't even bother trying to explain that Zim is better than Ireland to these guys, they're all closet Ireland fans pretending to support Zim.

[jimbo]

We beat ireland in the series without the spin exploits of ray price, I think If he played in that series he would have picked up a hatfull of wickets and the matches woudnt have been so close

[eugene]

This isn't an Ireland v Zimbabwe issue. The issue is the ICC being a bunch of idiots and deciding to make the world cup a closed competition.

Ireland have shown at the last two world cups that they deserve more regular cricket. Ireland have beaten Pakistan, Bangladesh and England and tied with Zimbabwe.

[Boundary]

Every article reduces this to a Zim vs Ireland issue, so we can't pretend it's not. Zim is better than Ireland, once we play consistently we'll improve the ranking and make this issue moot. No one is touring Pakistan but they've managed to play a lot of cricket worldwide and maintain their ranking.

[hhm]

No doubt Zim is better than Ireland in terms of structure and depth of talent. With proper selection and adequate preparation, we should beat them 3/4 times out of 5. However, we simply cannot discount the fact that they have been churning out the results, and have made everyone to sit up and take notice. Their current players are decent, and they give a good account of themselves against quality opposition in County cricket, so they do have a capable side which is justifiably aggrieved at being sidelined on this WC issue, not to mention the fact that it can do no worse than most of the Full members when they were initially allowed to play tests.

Having said that, I believe with the Word Cup being 4 years away and Ireland's better players ageing, they might just do a Kenya and wither away. Afterall they do not have the structure that we have. If their county players are not good enough to hold up a place in thier sides say 2-3 years from now that becomes a distinct possibility.

Regarding turning this into a Zim v Ire matter - that's downright wrong. The problem isn't Ire being ranked above Zim, it's India! Everyone want's to protect India due to their financial muscle. The catch is because India are a full member, then you cannot treat any other members including Zim&Ban any differently and view them to be the inferior ones who get to play qualifiers. What if Pak/WI/NZ suddenly find themselves in the bottom two come qualification time. Hence they all voted to exclude the Associates.

No one wants to host a WC which excludes India (you heard what NZ said), so the most fair route of all - soccer World Cup qualification - where everyone besides the host&champions must qualify, will not be considered.

They should just create a slot for 2 more associates. 2 groups of six' top four in esch group play QF and the rest follows.

[maehara]

This isn't an Ireland v Zimbabwe issue. The issue is the ICC being a bunch of idiots and deciding to make the world cup a closed competition.

Ireland have shown at the last two world cups that they deserve more regular cricket. Ireland have beaten Pakistan, Bangladesh and England and tied with Zimbabwe.

What eugene said.

The ODI rankings aren't fair, to a certain extent - there's no system for making sure everyone plays each other the same number of times, and because Ireland have fewer games taken into account, a win for them gets them far more points on the board than it does for Zim (rating is points / games played). So basing qualification on the current ODI rankings would be unfair. Perhaps the upcoming ODI league will do it in a fairer way, but this is the ICC we're talking about. (Ireland playing more Associates isn't really an issues, as only Kenya and Netherlands are on the ODI table anyway.)

A qualifying tourney is the way to go. And if Zim can't qualify through that route, then we really don't deserve to.

[andrewn9]

I'm a fan of both Zimbabwe and Ireland but if you think Ireland haven't got good players coming through you can think again. Paul Stirling, George Dockrell, Graeme McCarter, Craig Young, James Shannon, Ben Ackland and Shane Getkate are all 20-ish or below and have signed up or are afilliated with English counties. Also, Hamish Marshall the ex-NZ batsman has now qualified and is still a very good player. The future is looking good for the men in green even with a few inevitable retirements over the next couple of years.

[Trevor]

I am 100% Zim fan but i think this is the best news to come out of the ICC...I dont want Zim to qualify based on some silly rankings. We need to beat the likes of Ireland and other Associates to prove that we deserve to be there..

If we qualify based on the Test status, there will always be ramblings that we dont fully deserve to be there etc etc..I dont think we will want to play under such a cloud...I say bring on Ireland and the Associates in the qualifiers..

Hopefully 2+ years of regular cricket will have given us enough experience to compete at the level we beleive we are capable at performing at..(i beleive that some of our failure was due to a lack of experience)