SCOTS BEMOAN SMALLER WORLD CUP FOR NOT QUALIFYING

EDINBURGH:

The International Cricket Council is stunting the growth of the world game after cutting participation at the World Cup, Cricket Scotland chief executive Malcolm Cannon said on Thursday. Scotland came up agonizingly short of qualifying for next year’s showpiece in England after rain denied it the chance of a famous win over the West Indies in Zimbabwe this week.

Being on the verge of qualifying was an achievement in itself for Scotland, given the ICC cut the number of teams competing at the Cricket World Cup from 14 (in 2015) to 10, leaving sides such as Zimbabwe and the West Indies to scrap with Scotland, Ireland, and Afghanistan among others. The decision has attracted widespread criticism with accusations that the ICC is discouraging associate nations from growing the game.

“Our major bone of contention is not the rain,” Cannon told the British Press Association. “It’s not bad umpiring decisions or the lack of DRS, it is the fact - and this is something we have been lobbying strongly for the last two years - that the ICC are the only global sport that are reducing the number of teams in the World

Cup while others are increasing to grow the game globally. It is something we have fought very hard against and will continue to fight against and we desperately think it’s wrong. We thought it was wrong before we were done out of a place, so it’s not being after the event. This is long standing and will continue to be an argument from us.” The decision to slash participating nations in the Cricket World Cup, thereby forcing West Indies and Zimbabwe to qualify, meant it became even harder for the smaller nations given the comparative lack of funding compared to full member nations.