ICC Sending Minnows out of ICC Cricket World Cup is Their Own Mirror Reflection

By Sreelata S. Yellamrazu

         This was certainly not the hospitality expected of the otherwise sedate ICC. What made them jump the gun? Often admonished for reacting late, the ICC have perhaps suffered an initial ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 financial assessment jolt. That could be the only explanation why after allowing the captains of the teams from the associate nations ride in rickshaws in the opening ceremony, the ICC nearly sent them back the same way.
        They may have arrived like kings on flights from far off lands. However, if the ICC has its ways, the associate nations will be sent back into the unknown wilderness where cricket is usually an insect and the ICC Cricket World Cup means nothing. That is the latest offering from the otherwise generous ICC who have decided that the associate nations are better appeased in the Twenty20 while they can hope to salvage the once golden goose of the one day game by banishing them from the competition altogether.

          The ICC decision would have been fine only had the tournament not had the word ‘world’ in it. By its mere implication, it would mean the coming together of all nations who share a common interest, a common passion in a competition that will truly elevate the best and set the bar for the rest. If the ICC needed to be commended for braving sticking their neck out for these teams and using their pinnacle of tournaments to showcase that cricket has somehow touched some other remote part of the world, it would need to be harshly commended in the exact, opposite manner for suddenly turning these teams into overnight orphans.

            Imagine travelling miles knowing that the trophy is an elusive dream and the spirit of the journey was revived and reignited by the mere opportunity to competing against the very best. The mere thought of being able to leave, in some form, an impact, a footprint, of their presence is something these teams can only dream of every four years. To then pierce their heart and snatch it from them is not only cruel in its vested agenda but also, harsh given the timing.

          When the teams arrived here, they had no inkling that this would be their final ride. And it did not take very long after the spectacular ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 opening ceremony that the ICC decided to burst the bubble. From the ICC’s perspective, dismembering was imperative. But the brutality of the act has left everyone stunned.

         There is little doubt that cricket is no longer the passionate pursuit of sport but rather a sport built to survive in the modern era on the imperatives of business. By that economic sense, having teams with such disparities in skill made for little viewing for the fifty overs format. Often heavily dependent on one team to provide all the energy, these matches tended to make redundant popular cricket viewing, except for the ardent ones who are keen on watching other teams making the cut as well. That is an excitement altogether different, of watching an expanding world, but one it appears the ICC no longer has the patience for.

            The very people for whom the ICC introduced these teams to raise the finance for the globalization of the sport is now blaming the very people and teams for stunting the coffer brimming missions. Without the tools by way of more evolving series with the big league players, the ICC expected the teams to merely pick pace by benefit of competing in the qualifiers. What has brought on this change of heart from the ICC is not hard to understand given the commercialization of the sport where the lack of interest in any tournament could mean the death of its format.

        But why could the ICC not evolve this strategy before the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 or reserve their decision until the conclusion of this edition? It may have given these associate nations the emotions required to lift their game but not enough time or experience to develop the tenacity to stand up to the rigours of facing the top teams. And who is to blame for keeping the associate nations apart for four years, introduce them with shock culture and then, pack them off into the wilderness left to their own device without the actual match and competitions against those more evolved than them to lift their game?