The International Cricket Council seems to be bent upon making the glorious game as complicated as possible with its recent pronouncements.
The global pandemic has already done severe damage to sports right across the board. Not even an mega-event like the Olympic Games was spared. And as cricket limps back to some kind of normalcy with England hosting the West Indies for a three-Test series, comes the announcement of the Super League for one-day internationals as the qualifying route for the 50-over ICC World Cup to be hosted by India in November 2023.
Rather bizarre that the announcement comes right in the middle of the crisis with ICC's own Future Tour Programme already thrown into the shredder. Countries are looking askance at resuming international cricket but there seems to be little headway even for short bilateral engagements at the moment.
Without an FTP it means countries are free to choose their eight opponents out of the 13 participating nations to be included in the Super League tally. Obviously the early months of 2023 could prove rather busy for some of the lower ranked teams as those lagging in the qualifying race would be looking for some easy points.
And India stands to suffer the most. It qualifies automatically as the host and given the highly competitive nature of the side, not many would be looking forward to locking horns with them, especially close to the World Cup itself.
Playing games, at least in the near future, without spectators leaves cricket in all formats dependent upon the kind of audience television networks can draw. Yet again, lower ranked teams are bound to suffer for lack of interest from TV. Thus equal opportunity and a level playing field is denied leaving more than mere elbow room for manipulation.
Already, the pandemic has put the ICC Test Championship in something of a tizzy with games halted all round. Adding new events merely for the sake of innovation is hardly the answer. Cricket needs to be handled with care in these delicate times!
ICC needs to learn a few lessons from field hockey which nearly suffered an exit from the Olympic fold thanks to its falling popularity due to continuous tinkering with the rules of the game. That FIH needed to fall back upon India to save its Olympic place should serve as an eye-opener for ICC.
Hurried decisions aren't helping the cause of cricket at all!
The global pandemic has already done severe damage to sports right across the board. Not even an mega-event like the Olympic Games was spared. And as cricket limps back to some kind of normalcy with England hosting the West Indies for a three-Test series, comes the announcement of the Super League for one-day internationals as the qualifying route for the 50-over ICC World Cup to be hosted by India in November 2023.
Rather bizarre that the announcement comes right in the middle of the crisis with ICC's own Future Tour Programme already thrown into the shredder. Countries are looking askance at resuming international cricket but there seems to be little headway even for short bilateral engagements at the moment.
Without an FTP it means countries are free to choose their eight opponents out of the 13 participating nations to be included in the Super League tally. Obviously the early months of 2023 could prove rather busy for some of the lower ranked teams as those lagging in the qualifying race would be looking for some easy points.
And India stands to suffer the most. It qualifies automatically as the host and given the highly competitive nature of the side, not many would be looking forward to locking horns with them, especially close to the World Cup itself.
Playing games, at least in the near future, without spectators leaves cricket in all formats dependent upon the kind of audience television networks can draw. Yet again, lower ranked teams are bound to suffer for lack of interest from TV. Thus equal opportunity and a level playing field is denied leaving more than mere elbow room for manipulation.
Already, the pandemic has put the ICC Test Championship in something of a tizzy with games halted all round. Adding new events merely for the sake of innovation is hardly the answer. Cricket needs to be handled with care in these delicate times!
ICC needs to learn a few lessons from field hockey which nearly suffered an exit from the Olympic fold thanks to its falling popularity due to continuous tinkering with the rules of the game. That FIH needed to fall back upon India to save its Olympic place should serve as an eye-opener for ICC.
Hurried decisions aren't helping the cause of cricket at all!
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