DUBAI // David Richardson, the chief executive of the ICC, has defended the governing body’s decision to reduce the number of sides at cricket’s World Cup.
The 2015 tournament, which starts in New Zealand on February 14, will be contested by 14 teams. However, the ICC ruled in November that the next event in four year’s time will be open to only the 10 leading sides.
The decision means the UAE, who this month will be playing at a World Cup for the first time in 19 years, have extremely limited prospects of making it back for the next one.
Cricket is unique among world sports in contracting the number of teams in its showpiece event rather than expanding it.
Football’s World Cup in Brazil last year included 32 teams, playing 64 matches over 32 days. The next European Championships, in France next year, will involve 24 countries, up from 16 that played in Ukraine and Poland in 2012.
Richardson suggests the contraction is due to the fact there are only eight teams capable of competing at cricket’s flagship event.
“The aim is to put on a good event,” Richardson said. “Yes, that has a business side to it, because the better the event the more you are likely to get for your television rights and sponsorships.
“Also, from a cricket point of view, my view has always been at World Cup people want to see competitive cricket.
“Our aim is not necessarily to increase the number of members but to improve the standard of those members that we have.
“At the moment, arguably - with all due respect to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh - we probably have eight teams that I would regard as competitive.
“We need to increase that. We need to get that up, in one-day cricket at least, to 14 teams or 16 teams by the end of this eight-year cycle.”
Richardson, who was South Africa’s wicketkeeper the last time a World Cup was played in Australia and New Zealand, in 1992, reiterated that increasing interest in cricket in the United States is a concern of the ICC.
He said there are more active players in the US than in some Test-playing countries, but “they are not progressing as we would like.”
“We would like the US to qualify for a major world event within the next eight years or so,” he said.
Lessening the number of teams playing in the 2019 World Cup is unlikely to mean the duration of the tournament will be shorter.
Critics of the 50-over competition suggest it is too long and unwieldy. The 2015 event takes 43 days to complete.
However, Richardson points out the competition is shorter than most bilateral series, and suggests the interest of spectators will be maintained so long as the matches are competitive.
“If we have a tournament that is 49 matches and the number of times we have double-headers is restricted, the value of that tournament goes up,” Richardson said. “We get more for it from television rights and sponsorship rights.
“The cynics will say it is businessmen running cricket, but the bottom line is we haven’t got a hope of developing countries like the US, UAE, and having a development programme in place if we don’t make money from these events.”
pradley@thenational.ae
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