Number of teams for 2019 yet to be decided: ICC

Format of the next World Cup to be decided once this one ends, says official.

SYDNEY: The number of teams taking part in the 2019 World Cup has not been finalised, said the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday as it responded to growing criticism that its proposed cut risked damaging the sport’s development.

Cricket chiefs have come under fire for their plan to reduce the number of teams involved in England in four years’ time to 10 from the 14 taking part in the ongoing tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

But ICC chief executive David Richardson, in a telephone interview, said Friday, “I’ve learnt never to say never to anything. I’m sure the format of the next World Cup will be debated after this one has finished.”



Ireland beat one of the elite Test-playing nations for the third successive World Cup when they defeated the West Indies by four wickets in their 2015 opener, while Thursday saw tournament debutants Afghanistan’s astonishingly rapid progress continue when they defeated Scotland by just one wicket to record their first World Cup win.

“I’m pleased with the performances of the qualifiers so far, but the bigger tests are still to come,” said Richardson.

“The question is what do you want the World Cup to be? Do you want it to be a jamboree of world cricket or the pinnacle of the one-day game?”

Richardson added that heading into the current World Cup, there had been criticism that the format — where 14 teams are split into two groups of seven, with the top four in each pool qualifying for the quarter-finals — would leave them with a long group stage, at the end of which the eight teams everyone thought would get through had made it into the quarter-finals.

Asked what his feelings were following the initially improved showing by the four Associate sides — Afghanistan, Ireland, Scotland and the UAE — at the World Cup, Richardson said, “There’s a sense of relief. Our biggest concern before the tournament was that these teams would be uncompetitive.”

An online petition calling for the ICC to abandon its plan to reduce the number of teams in 2019 has already gathered more than 13,000 signatures.

But Richardson said the thinking in reducing the number of teams had been motivated by trying to get as near to the “best format” of the 1992 World Cup.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2015.

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