The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Scotland cricket chiefs counting the cost of World Cup failure.
Scotland: World Cup money would have been channelled into grassroots
Scottish cricket was yesterday counting the financial cost of the national side’s failure to reach the World Cup.
The Scots were denied a place at next year’s ICC global showpiece in controversial circumstances on Wednesday when an umpiring error meant they were five runs short of the par score when a torrential downpour ended the game and handed victory to the West Indies.
Scotland had looked on course to clinch one of only two places available through the qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe for a World Cup which has been trimmed to just 10 teams.
Now, though, Cricket Scotland will miss out on in excess of £700,000 in bonus payments from the game’s ruling body as well as other opportunities to attract sponsorship. The chance to attract top quality opposition for the senior team will also be reduced.
CS chief executive Malcolm Cannon said: “It isn’t just financial implications – the opportunities to actually play cricket are reducing.
“The ICC don’t offer many opportunities to us and going into a World Cup year the teams we would like to play become very busy. So, finding a window in their schedule is very tough.
“There is no actual cost because these are monies we never assumed we would have but there is an opportunities cost because it would have enabled us to do a lot of other things and invest in the grassroots game even more than we are currently doing.”
Scotland’s senior team completed just eight days of competitive cricket on home soil last summer and the picture looks even gloomier for 2018 with a solitary ODI against England and two T20 clashes with Pakistan the only confirmed fixtures on the calendar.
Scotland and other Associate members of the ICC remain furious at the decision to reduce the World Cup from 14 to just 10 teams and Cannon added: “We have been lobbying the ICC for the last year telling them it is a retrograde step for cricket globally.
“To reduce the number of teams while World Cups in other sports are being increased really sticks in the craw.”
Meanwhile, the squad will head home from Zimbabwe this weekend but their next scheduled fixture is not until June 10 when England head to The Grange, Edinburgh.