SYDNEY : Afghanistan coach Andy Moles has no doubts over the thorny issue of the 2019 World Cup and the controversial plan to cut the number of teams from 14 to just 10.
“It’s called the World Cup, and the secret is in the name,” he said.
After Ireland became the last of the four non-Test or Associate nations taking part at the World Cup to bow out of the tournament on Sunday, there were plenty of supporters for Moles’s opinion.
Indeed there has been a chorus of criticism, including major names in the sport such as Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Waugh, regarding plans by the International Cricket Council to reduce the number of teams taking part.
Ireland, long the leading Associate member of the ICC, beat Test teams for the third World Cup in a row.
It says much about Irish cricket that their victories over both the West Indies and Zimbabwe were no longer seen as shocks.
In the end they were only denied a quarter-final place on net run-rate, with the West Indies scraping through at their expense.
Even in Sunday’s seven-wicket defeat by Pakistan there was a moment for Ireland to savour with captain William Porterfield making a fine hundred.
“I’d love to think it was not our last World Cup game,” said Porterfield.
“I think something has to be done if they (the ICC) want to grow the game.
“If you cut us out of the World Cup then what’s the point really for us to keep going.”
All four Associates taking part at this World Cup — Afghanistan, Ireland, Scotland and the United Arab Emirates — did enough to show how much better they might yet be with more games against top-class opposition in between World Cups.
True there were, as was the case in 2011, some lopsided ‘blow-outs’.
But they didn’t just involve the Associates with England, who in common with the non-Test quartet failed to qualify for the last eight, on the receiving end of thumping defeats by Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. (AGENCIES)
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