Sachin Tendulkar, an ambassador for the
World Cup feels that there should be 25 teams competing in the next World Cup.
“I found out the next World Cup would only be ten teams,” he said adding,
“Which is slightly disappointing because as a cricketer I want the game to be
globalised as much as possible and, according to me, this (having just 10
teams) is a backwards step.
He told an audience at an exclusive dinner in
Sydney that the ICC should instead be exploring ways to expand the next World
Cup to as many as 25 teams.
“Right now, they (associate teams) get up after
four years on the cricket world’s biggest platform and they’re expected to play
and compete with the likes of Australia, South Africa, India, New Zealand, West
Indies, Sri Lanka, so many top sides. It’s unfair to them.”
Since the 2011 World Cup, Ireland has played only
11 ODIs against Full Member nations and their captain William Porterfield has
been joined by his Scotland counterpart – Preston Mommsen – as well as a host
of players and officials from both Associate and Full Member sides, in calling
for a “level playing field”.
Sachin said he believes cricket’s global fan base
will only grow if the Associates improve to the level where they can be
consistently competitive and he believes the first step is to schedule regular
matches against second-string sides from the Full Members nations.
Sachin also suggested Full Member nations should regularly play their ‘A’ sides against Associates and strive to provide a “fair platform” for smaller cricketing countries. He says, “It is not just about the top six or seven sides. If we are to globalise this game we have to get more and more people excited about cricket and the fan following only follows the result”.
“If the results are good then you have more fans, so it’s important that they play good cricket consistently for a longer period, not just one good performance and then suddenly they go underground for four years and then turn up if they do well in those qualifying rounds.
“So I would say it’s something the ICC needs to look into and I hope they look into it.”
He also spoke about his concerns for the 50-over format and said he had suggested to the ICC about splitting ODIs into two 25-over innings. “I think Test cricket definitely will survive and T20 is definitely going to survive,” he said. “There is a big question mark over one-day cricket because I think it is getting monotonous. I have sort of casually suggested to the ICC that they need to look at the format. Can we change the format a little bit so that it’s not predictable? Can we look to introduce something which is slightly out of the box?”
Tendulkar proposed a split-innings format, which he said could encourage more exciting matches and fairer results when games were interrupted by rain.
Speaking about some venues, “I felt there was a huge disadvantage in certain venues when the sides had to go in second because there is so much dew. Spinners are virtually out of the game and fast bowlers don’t get any movement.
“They’re bowling straight and the batters are thinking, well, where am I going to hit the next boundary? The game doesn’t go ahead like this. We need to find the right balance.”
However, ICC hasn’t reacted as yet. Sachn said,”They haven’t reacted. I’m still waiting.”
