AUSTRALIA SUPPORTS ICC MOVE TO SNUB ASSOCIATE NATIONS FROM WORLD CUP

The Australian cricket team has again expressed their disagreement on the associate teams’ participation in the next ICC World Cup in 2015.

According to media reports, Cricket Australia (CA) official has even said earlier that they want to have ten national teams instead of 14-teams, in the future mega event. However, the next World Cup would be entirely based on merit, so that it would gain more credibility in the eleventh edition of the World Cup.

The CA official has said, “What we discussed when this was last an issue, let’s move to the 2015 World Cup with 10 teams being the 10 full-member nations, but let’s keep moving after that to it being a merit-based process and in the eyes of world cricket fans that would give the tournament its maximum credibility”.

There are calls that the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup needs to be as trim and short as possible, since it is the flagship tournament of the game. Long gaps and dull games have somewhat marred its importance in the last 20 odd years.

CA spokesman added, “The ICC World Cup, if it’s to be a credible, attractive tournament in the eyes of world cricket fans, needs to be as tight and as focused as it can be without long gaps with nothing going on, which has been one of the problems that’s characterized some World Cups in the last 15 to 20 years”.

The ICC has initially confirmed that the next edition of the ICC World Cup in New Zealand and Australia will host only 10 teams who are the full-member nations.

The minnows including Ireland, Netherlands, Kenya, and Canada would not be the part of the new structure for the next mega tournament in 2015.

However, the President of the ICC has appealed to the higher management to reconsider their decision of including only10-teams in the World Cup of 2015.

The recently concluded ICC World Cup was the tenth edition, in which 14 teams participated. However, reconsidering the formulated structure would prove beneficial for the minnows, as they will have another chance to play in the mega event.