What they did about the cricket World Cup

So, the ICC has performed the ultimate backflip and decided the next World Cup will be contested by 14 – not 10 – teams?

Four Associate members will join the 10 Test nations at the 2015 tournament, which will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

The ICC announced it reversed its controversial decision to ban emerging outfits from its 50-over showpiece earlier this week, but omitted any announcement about the tournament’s format.

One can only assume it will be identical to this year’s tournament, which was panned as too long with too many meaningless and non-competitive matches.

While the likes of Kenya, Canada and the Netherlands didn’t cover themselves in glory on the subcontinent, fellow novices Ireland [who are ranked ahead of Zimbabwe in ODI Cricket] stunned England and held their own against South Africa and India.

Meantime, the 2012 and 2014 World Twenty20s will feature 12 teams [the 10 Tests nations plus two qualifiers] and the 2019 ODI showpiece will have 10 entrants [the top eight ranked nations, plus two qualifiers].

It is this blog’s stance that the ICC should be EXPANDING, not contracting its 50-over carnival. Click HERE if you want the full story.

A 16-team tournament would be ideal. Following FIFA’s lead, the top-eight ODI nations would be put into one pot for the draw. The two lowest-ranked full members would join the six associates in the second pot.

Pot 1 would be drawn first. Hypothetically, we could see this:

Pool A           Pool B            Pool C                        Pool D

India              Sri Lanka       Pakistan                     S. Africa

West Indies   Australia        NZ                              England

Pot 2 would be next, hopefully leading to something like this:

Pool A            Pool B           Pool C                        Pool D

India              Sri Lanka       Pakistan                    S. Africa

W Indies        Australia        NZ                             England

Zimbabwe     B’desh           Ireland                       Netherlands

Canada          Kenya           Scotland                    Afghanistan

Now, here’s the kicker – there would only be three pool games for each team, ensuring EVERY game matters, something that has been lacking from the past two World Cups. The top two from each pool would qualify for the quarter-finals A1 v B2, A2 v B1, C1 v D2, C2 v D1.

The tournament would be over quickly, ensure every game matters and help grow the game by giving MORE nations a chance to test themselves against established powers. People might gripe if their team is drawn in a pool with two other Test nations, but ‘groups of death’ have been a fact of life and a talking point in football for years.