Ireland & Co get their wish, most of it

Tony Becca, ON THE BOUNDARY

While the West Indies and India were preparing for their contest in the second Test in Bridgetown, Barbados, a match of little significance and watched by a handful of devoted people, a contest between a weak West Indies team and an Indian team short of seven of its best players, the big boys of cricket, the International Cricket Council's (ICC) chief executive committee were tweaking and making amendments to almost everything in cricket in the unusual location of Hong Kong, in the hope of getting things right.

There were changes in the one-day game from one to two bouncers per over, no compulsory requirement for close catchers, a maximum of four fielders outside the 30-yard circle during the power play overs and the use of two new balls per innings, one at either end.

While runners in cricket have also been abolished, the Decision Review System (DRS), without the use of ball-tracking technology, is now compulsory for all teams, including India.

Teams have also been given two years to free themselves of any government connection and with the presidency of the ICC going from one to the other on a rotating basis, the principle, thank God, is due to change at the October meeting to one where the best man available is elected.

The most significant occurrence at the ICC meeting, however, was the change in the format of the 2015 World Cup and the sense of relief by teams like Ireland and the Netherlands.

At the end of the 2011 World Cup in India and Bangladesh, the consensus was that it was one of, if not the best World Cup ever, and it was so described because of the performances of teams from the Associate Members - teams like Ireland and the Netherlands.

A few months after the finish of the World Cup, however, while planning for the 2015 event, the powers that be ruled that there would be changes for that event and the changes would include a change in the number of teams participating.

The change called for 10 teams instead of 14.

The 10 teams would be the Full Members of the ICC and the four ICC Associate Members would be omitted, including Ireland who beat Pakistan in 2007 to reach the second round of the tournament and who beat England in 2011.

This, understandably so, angered the Associate Members, especially so Ireland, and many of the Full Member countries. Ireland vowed to take the fight to the ICC with the hope of getting the ruling overturned.

They argued that the ICC should stage a qualification tournament for participation in the World Cup if cricket was to improve around the world and they argued their right to participate in a qualifying tournament, and especially so after beating some of the top teams in the last two tournaments.

qualification

Ireland argued what good was it to qualify for a tournament, to beat the weak teams and some of the good teams and then to be denied qualification next time around for the same tournament in which teams that you have beaten have been guaranteed participation.

Now that they have won this round and the ICC have gone back to qualification and 14 teams for 2015, Warren Deutrom, head of Cricket Ireland, has started to beat the drum harder: he is calling for a system of elevation, of moving forward, in cricket.

In cricket, no one knows how a team gets from one stage to another: from B level cricket to A level cricket.

Deutrom wants that changed.

Like many in his circumstances, he wants to know, to be given some guidelines as to what he needs to do to move from point A to point B, and he wants to be assured that if he does what he is required to do he will be rewarded.

He does not feel that Ireland is ready for Test cricket, at least not yet. He would like to know, however, what he needs to do if and when the time comes.

What he does not want to happen again is to find himself denied of what he considers his right.

His right is to qualify for a place in the World Cup, especially when other teams that his team has defeated get in as if by right.

Cricket, said Deutrom, is big business and cricket in Ireland can get bigger if it is treated properly.