T20 World Cup: Live Matches Discussion

First topic message reminder :

Hi all,

I've set up our very own 606v2 T20 World Cup SuperBru tipping competition for anyone who is interested.

http://www.superbru.com/worldt20/player_home.asp

First game is Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe on Tuesday, September 18 at 19:30 (local time) in Hambantota.

The full list of fixtures is here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/world-twenty20-2012/content/series/531597.html?template=fixtures

The pool code for 606v2: playsacs

Everyone is welcome.
Enjoy the matches and best of luck to your team.

Who do you think will win?

Man did I mess up my Superbru predictions, I thought Sri Lanka would beat SA (just to get the choke out of the system) and thought Australia would lose, then forgot to pick the next 2 matches, so I am down by 4 matches in 2seconds flat.

Biltong wrote:Man did I mess up my Superbru predictions, I thought Sri Lanka would beat SA (just to get the choke out of the system) and thought Australia would lose, then forgot to pick the next 2 matches, so I am down by 4 matches in 2seconds flat.

Biltong - you'll be telling us next you predicted Pietersen as Man of the Series!

guildfordbat wrote:

Biltong wrote:Man did I mess up my Superbru predictions, I thought Sri Lanka would beat SA (just to get the choke out of the system) and thought Australia would lose, then forgot to pick the next 2 matches, so I am down by 4 matches in 2seconds flat.

Biltong - you'll be telling us next you predicted Pietersen as Man of the Series!

He is there isn't he? The one who's name we may not speak. I guess not.

Biltong wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:

Biltong wrote:Man did I mess up my Superbru predictions, I thought Sri Lanka would beat SA (just to get the choke out of the system) and thought Australia would lose, then forgot to pick the next 2 matches, so I am down by 4 matches in 2seconds flat.

Biltong - you'll be telling us next you predicted Pietersen as Man of the Series!

He is there isn't he? The one who's name we may not speak. I guess not.

Biltong - you get a special prize for best use of emoticons anyway! (which hardly seems adequate) ...

Good start this from the Bangladeshis! 61-1 off 5.4!

And now Tamim run out. Stupid.

well it's a great start from Bangladesh, needing to win by 36 runs or more to knock out Pakistan. Shakib and Tanim slapping the bowlers all over the place, the bowlers line and length has been absolutely horrible so far. Oh dear, terrible mix-up and Iqbal has to go. 61-2 with one ball of the PP remaining. BD need 170+ here to have a look at those 36 runs...

90-2 off 10.

Fairly stupid 2 wickets, but Bangladesh have to go for as much as possible, so I suppose you can forgive that.

Shakib with a fantastic shot off Ajmal in that previous over. Message to England - use your feet.

bet365 has given an equal odd at this moment to BD and Pak

Sohail?

KP_fan wrote:bet365 has given an equal odd at this moment to BD and Pak

Is that on winning this match or getting through to the next stage?

A win for Bangladesh today would be a tremendous achievement but they'll still be left with a hollow feeling if they go out.

guildfordbat wrote:

KP_fan wrote:bet365 has given an equal odd at this moment to BD and Pak

Is that on winning this match or getting through to the next stage?

A win for Bangladesh today would be a tremendous achievement but they'll still be left with a hollow feeling if they go out.

I'd suggest Sohail might have had a flutter on this game, judging by his fielding...

guildfordbat wrote:

KP_fan wrote:bet365 has given an equal odd at this moment to BD and Pak

Is that on winning this match or getting through to the next stage?

A win for Bangladesh today would be a tremendous achievement but they'll still be left with a hollow feeling if they go out.

winning the match
if they get even a win.....they would go with something to show
the rub of green going the BD way today...or luck favours the bold as they say

Geez this Pakistan performance if it continues is going to raise questions...

Umar Gul has done a very good Steve Harmison impression, and Sohail Tanvir? I'd be disappointed if an 11 year old dropped that.

Very good knock from Shakib so far.

Worrying.

KP_fan wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:

KP_fan wrote:bet365 has given an equal odd at this moment to BD and Pak

Is that on winning this match or getting through to the next stage?

A win for Bangladesh today would be a tremendous achievement but they'll still be left with a hollow feeling if they go out.

winning the match
if they get even a win.....they would go with something to show
the rub of green going the BD way today...or luck favours the bold as they say

Thanks, that's what I thought. Yes, they would go with something to show. However, they would still be mighty disappointed to go.

Unable to watch at the moment so relying on comments from you guys, thanks.

Mike Selig wrote:Geez this Pakistan performance if it continues is going to raise questions...

.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN ??

Fantastic from Bangladesh so far, particularly Shakib (and Iqbal, briefly).

A feature of their cricket has been to offer hope and then fade badly. We can only hope that they manage to keep up this momentum for the rest of the innings.

They'll still need to bowl well, mind.

Here we go, the capitulation I spoke of is in full flow.

Wow, this is looking like Bangladesh's once in a blue moon decent performance (usually vs Pakistan) to unquestionably keep them as full members for the next x decades so we can all enjoy their glorious attempts to not lose every Test by an innings.

No surprise to see this on text commentary

"Nasir played at it and got a thin edge that was dropped by Kamran Akmal"

Great knock from Shakib. Decent effort from Bangladesh, but probably should have got 10 more runs, but for a few too many dots in between the big shots.

Pakistan's fielding will raise question marks, although they've always been dodgy.

140 for Pakistan to get through. It's not that easy, but they should be ok. Pitch looks beautiful.

Very decent effort from Bangladesh, and excellent from Shakib (highest T20I score from a Bangladesh batsman, and the highest that anyone has made against Pakistan).

You have to expect Pakistan to reach the 140 required for qualification, though Bangladesh's bottle was admirable, something that England would do well to learn from (their batsmen could teach ours a thing or two about playing spin bowling).

You never know, though, and with the runs on the board anything can happen. If Pakistan worry too much about the 140 as opposed to chasing this as if they needed to win the match then they could cause themselves a few problems mentally.

Best of luck to the Bangla's.

Bangladesh need to introduce spin and qucikly! Runs are haemoragging off the quick bowlers!

I thought Bangladesh batted only OK. They were served up a lot of loose stuff on a flat wicket, and still managed only 175. They really needed something in the 200 region to put pressure on Pakistan (as far as qualification is concerned). Bangladesh are now a maturing international team and can't be happy that they haven't come close to winning either match - Pakistan was always going to be tough as both teams have quite similar game plans, making it difficult for the weaker team overall to prevail. The run out was typical of their performances over the last few years - get in a good position, then let it go.

I've always thought Umar Gul is a tad overrated. At his best he's one of the best T20 seamers around, but he also has a lot of bad days and today was diabolical. Because of his inconsistency I wouldn't put him at the same level as Malinga, Steyn or Morkel as a T20 bowler.

Pakistan's fielding was atrocious. I reckon I might even have taken the catch Sohail Tanvir fluffed (and I've dropped a few in my time....). Plenty of other mishaps too

bye bye bangladesh.

Arguably Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have been the weakest two sides in this tournament. Yet they qualified automatically, not by virtue of being ranked highly, but by virtue of erm being "full members". Fair?

Bangladesh were, Shakib aside, pretty poor again today. Mushfiqur Rahim batted too slowly, and got out at the wrong time to the most predictable short ball (of which there were plenty from both sides). Tamim Iqbal played a nice cameo and was unfortunate. Shakib played very well indeed, and bowled quite nicely as well.

Bangladesh were pretty terrible in the field, not only the obvious drop, but the amount of singles given away was poor, and there were at least 3 occasions when they didn't even attempt a possible diving stop on the boundary.

Their bowling was little better: the seamers were average in the extreme, and Razzaq was too short. The captaincy was strange - once again we saw spin held back too long, and once again we saw a bowler being given too many overs on the trott in the PP - with devastating results.

It seems like I'm being harsher on Bangladesh than I was on Ireland. Well, they receive 12 times the funding (and have been for a while). They've been involved in numerous global tournaments and unlike Ireland don't have the excuse of not enough fixtures against the better sides. They simply haven't improved enough to continue justifying their privileged status.

Pakistan's bowling was ordinary at times, although it's not easy to judge as the pitch was true and Bangladesh had little to lose. Gul was particularly wayward, and not for the first time - it seems he either bowls a brilliant spell or goes all over the park. Sohail Tanvir shouldn't be bowling 3 overs inside the PP, I am surprised that Pakistan don't want to use their two main spinners then. I also think it's a risky business leaving Ajmal two or 3 overs at the death - you risk making him far less of a factor as he can be hit.

Their batting seems to be working well though. Imran Nazir is hit and miss, and today he hit, but Kamran Akmal, Hafeez and the left-hander are all in good form. It seems fragile to me (Nazir, Akmal are just as likely to score 0 as they are 70, and Hafeez can be kept in check) but it only needs to fire in a couple more matches...

the fielding though. Well dear me. That's the worse drop I've ever seen at international level, and that includes games I've been involved in. It lobbed to him, it wasn't a skier (which can be trickier than they look) or hit with any force. It was dreadful. Aside from that the fielding was fairly poor anyway.

Umar Gul was disappointing in the first game as well, and Tanvir also hasn't hit his straps as yet and his fielding has been pretty poor. Arafat is anyways an average seamer, but with Ajmal, Afridi and Hafeez they can cover up a lot of things. Is Razaq in the squad?

Bangladesh is a full member and we have to live with it. Since that is a given we have to think beyond that.
Now they have been playing a lot of T-20s in recent times. They played a lot of ODIs before the last WC. Neither helped their cause.
I think they have got their priorities wrong. After the 2010 series with England they haven't played enough test matches. In the period leading up to that series they played a bit more at the test level, and and all be it rather slowly, there were some good signs. By playing more tests I think their batting would improve and they have a better idea about constructing an innings. As test cricket demands wickets, at least their spinners would lerarn to think about getting wickets.
Perhaps playing and losing consistently against the top sides may not be of a great deal of help, but they should play more tests with West Indies, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan with a few matches in between against the other sides. I think that is the nly way they are going to improve. Playing too many T-20Is or ODIs aren't going to help them.

Automatic qualification should be decided on rankings.

I'd suggest that the top 8 teams should qualify at a set cut-off (say, 6 months before a tournament). Perhaps the host nation could qualify automatically, at the expense of the 8th ranked team if the host wasn't ranked in the top 8.

The teams ranked 9th and 10th would then go straight to a final qualifying stage, which would follow on from the main stage of the Qualifier.

The Qualifier could feature 14 teams in two groups of seven (not unreasonably long when games can be played at the same time, as they can in Associate cricket), with the top 3 in each group joining the 9th and 10th teams for knockout final qualifiers, and then going on to play-off for the tournament trophy. The 9th and 10th teams would be seeded, and probably stand a good chance of winning through, but at least they'd have had to qualify through the same system as the rest. Even if the chance of winning was minimal I'm sure a team that came 3rd in their group would appreciate the chance to take on a Zimbabwe or whatever.

To facilitate this the lesser nations would have to play more T20Is outside of World Cups. That would allow a more realistic ranking to emerge than the current T20 rankings.

The way the ICC structure and politics within the organization work, any idea of qualification would unfortunately be confined to discussion forums such as this, although it is an idea with a lot of merit.

msp83 wrote:Bangladesh is a full member and we have to live with it. Since that is a given we have to think beyond that.
Now they have been playing a lot of T-20s in recent times. They played a lot of ODIs before the last WC. Neither helped their cause.
I think they have got their priorities wrong. After the 2010 series with England they haven't played enough test matches. In the period leading up to that series they played a bit more at the test level, and and all be it rather slowly, there were some good signs. By playing more tests I think their batting would improve and they have a better idea about constructing an innings. As test cricket demands wickets, at least their spinners would lerarn to think about getting wickets.
Perhaps playing and losing consistently against the top sides may not be of a great deal of help, but they should play more tests with West Indies, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan with a few matches in between against the other sides. I think that is the nly way they are going to improve. Playing too many T-20Is or ODIs aren't going to help them.

They haven't played much in the immediate lead-up.

This year they've done some good things - Bangladesh players performed better than anticipated at the BPL, they competed in every game at the Asia Cup (and won a couple), and put up a good showing away from home in the unofficial T20 tri-series with Zimbabwe and an SA XI. But they haven't shown that form in the last two games.

I do think that this team is a maturing side and should go well over the next couple of years - its easy to forget that even the likes of Shakib and Mushfiq that have seemingly been around for years are still only a year or so older than the English youngsters for whom we use inexperience as an excuse when they don't do well.

However, they are reaching a stage where continuing improvement is needed.

The lack of Tests is a problem - they've hardly played any in the last couple of years, and when they have have only competed in patches. But a bigger issue is the domestic cricket, which is run in a very strange way. Even when the bigger names don't have international commitments for a long period they don't practice their 4 day cricket in the national leagues - instead they play unofficial limited overs competitions like the Dhaka Premier League in preference, because they get paid better. Domestic seasons also often get disrupted/ rescheduled because of disputes or the monsoon season. I think the BCB are trying to do something about this, but I'm not sure its been fully resolved.

Not having the best players in the FC competition is not only not good for the players who all need to get better at the longer formats, but also not very good for the younger players. That is because if they can't even bowl at Bangladesh's best players in match situations, bowling at international batsmen is always going to be a huge step up.

msp83 wrote:The way the ICC structure and politics within the organization work, any idea of qualification would unfortunately be confined to discussion forums such as this, although it is an idea with a lot of merit.

At the moment yes. Doesn't mean we shouldn't campaign for change though.

Regarding Bangladesh Shelsey raises the point that they're still young, but it's not age that matters so much as experience. These guys are experienced enough now to not be making the basic errors they keep making.
msp suggests more test matches would help their batsmen build their innings better, and I think that's a valid point.
I also think they need help with their domestic structure which isn't good enough. The BPL will help, as would perhaps involving second tier teams from India/Pakistan in the Bangladesh domestic league to increase competition.

It took players like Aravinda De Silva, Arjuna Ranatunka and Sanath Jayasuriya years to turn into polished performers at the highest level, so I am hopeful about Bangladesh. Shakib is already a very good all-rounder. Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim can go places, and young Nasir Hossain has already demonstrated a good temprament. Others like Mahmudullah and Sunny are tallented. Those players could be the core around which Bangladesh can turn things around, but I strongly believe the turn around would happen only if they play more test matches. If they can find a couple of half decent seamers, then that would also help matters. Shafiul Islam, despite his inconsistencies should be one as the lad is tallented, and they have to find another one, as Mashrafe Mortaza unfortunately has major fitness problems.

I am ok with 2 Associates. Anything more than that would be annoying personally. There is no point in teams filling up the numbers just because its named a "World" Cup. I'd prefer good quality cricket.

For those that are interested the women's event is underway in Galle.

The first match was between perennial strugglers Sri Lanka and South Africa, and saw SA win by 6 wickets after bowling SL out for 79.

Starting shortly is an interesting match between New Zealand, usually strong but who have struggled in the past few series and West Indies, who have some top T20 players but are a bit mercurial.

--sponsors and spectators lose interest, money and paying capacity if the quality of cricket is sub standard....which is the case with minnows and BD and Zim.

--Minnows need to be promoted and game spread....but NOT IN the worldcup.....they can be playing regular teams in bilateral tours.
ICC and ACC have earnings from whihc they can susidize the development costs in these nations....but please don't spoil a premier event...in the name of promotion of the game.

--And so far this world cup has been a charade....more than a week into the w'cup and nothing meaningful has occured....that would have an impact on the outcome of the worldcup results.

Having BD and Zim in premier events is in itself debatable........a mistake that is hard to reverse.

Having IRE, Afganistan, Holland, Namibia, Bermuda, Kenya type teams .....is a joke or a crime......depending on how you look at it......an odd game they win ever 10 years notwithstanding

KP_fan wrote:--sponsors and spectators lose interest, money and paying capacity if the quality of cricket is sub standard....which is the case with minnows and BD and Zim.

--Minnows need to be promoted and game spread....but NOT IN the worldcup.....they can be playing regular teams in bilateral tours.
ICC and ACC have earnings from whihc they can susidize the development costs in these nations....but please don't spoil a premier event...in the name of promotion of the game.

--And so far this world cup has been a charade....more than a week into the w'cup and nothing meaningful has occured....that would have an impact on the outcome of the worldcup results.

Having BD and Zim in premier events is in itself debatable........a mistake that is hard to reverse.

Having IRE, Afganistan, Holland, Namibia, Bermuda, Kenya type teams .....is a joke or a crime......depending on how you look at it......an odd game they win ever 10 years notwithstanding

Spectators and sponsors lose interest when the main supported teams (India and England) are out - it has nothing to do with the quality of the cricket. That is why every World cup since 2007 has worked as hard as possible to make sure England and India are still involved at the latter stages of the tournament.

Are you actually suggesting the world cup should be a tournament only open to 8 countries? Or are you suggesting some sort of qualification process? if so, what?

"an odd game ever (sic) 10 years": it's much much more than that, and you know it.

Have you ever tried developping the game in another country? Do you realise how much easier it would be if cricket was a sport interested in genuinely expanding? What kind of message does it send to say "you're welcome to play, but you can't play our flagship format (test cricket) or any of our flagship events"?

How good would Ireland and Afghanistan be if they received the same funding as the full members? How good would Ireland be if Eoin Morgan still played for them, and they hadn't lost the services of Ed Joyce during a crucial period in their development?

even when the top most spectator and sponsorship nations are out of an event...there is still interest if major nations are still in....because the audiences just love good quality cricket.

[ I won't be surprised if there are perhaps as many if not more number of people wtaching SA-Eng or Ashes on TV in subcontinent then in Eng]

sponsors money and audiences' direct payment..... is made with the sole objective ---to be entertained and watch quality.

development of the poor and the weak is not on the agenda or interest....of the audience and hence the sponsor's marketing budgets....however noble and charitable it might sound.

and the payer dicatetes what he wants to buy.

for that reason......BD has NEVER had a test match series in India...and Zim last toured at the start of the millenium when Flower was still scoring 100s and double hundreds...

Now ICC still makes money from these world cup events......and they can channelize this money into development of the weak and the poor budding nations...by organizing bilateral series in Ire and Afganistan etc...with those countries that are willing to participate.

[ that's one of the objectives on the charter of ICC actually to develop and spread the game ]

so all major events should be down to top 8 team...in the worst case for political ( vote preservation reasons) getting rid of Zim and BD is not possible....and they will continue to hang around our necks......to a maximum of 10 team.

Meanwhile in the real world, quite a few fans DO want to see Ireland etc play in major tournaments. Quite a few on this board.

Witness the major outcry when the ICC suggested that the 2015 world cup be replaced by an invitational tournament (which from what I gather is what you're suggesting, given you're not proposing any qualifying system). There was also a concerted move to boycott pepsi, a major ICC sponsor, and the very real threat of legal action (based on the fact you can't call an invitational tournament a World cup). This forced the ICC to back down.

It is well known that interest in the 2007 tournament dropped dramatically when India got knocked out early.

Finally "poor and weak" is insulting, so please don't use those terms.

^your arguments...(or the lack of them) do not give me any reasons to add more....all my points....arguments, rationale and opinions are well covered in my previous posts.

regards

Not really because you say

"development of the [non cosy club] members is not on the agenda [...] of the audience"

This is at odds with the very real outcry when the ICC suggested making the 2015 world cup an invitational event.

You are IMO conflating what India and the indian fans think with the rest of the world.

A debate is actually answering what the other person says, not just repeating your views ad nauseum. I think you haven't really got the point of that.

outcry in India ?..... on the possibility of dropping minnows ???
which India ?...


me debating ?...with you
Sorry I don't debate with serial abusers.....i.e those who resort to personal attacks when they disagree or run out of logical responses.

I simply make my points on the topic and move on....when I have no more to add.

No the outcry was in the rest of the world, not India. That's what I mean when I say that you are conflating the view from India with that of the rest of the world.

You don't debate with anyone. You just repeat your points ad nauseum until someone becomes annoyed, abuse people, provoke them and then take the high ground when they have a go back. For a while you came up with some interesting views from India which was why I took you off my foe list. That was obviously a mistake.

The simple fact is that you're a very sad person who gets off on getting a rise out of people. Well with me you've succeeded so have a nice w@nk over it if you please. This board used to be a very good place to come and debate and talk cricket and you're doing your best to ruin it. I do wish you would f@ck off or that the mods would grow a pair and ban you. You have nothing useful to contribute. You obviously have no knowledge of cricket either judging on your perception of Panesar as a more attacking bowler than Swann and thinking Brett Lee played a crucial role in Australia winning in India (he didn't play a test).

For now, I'm done.

"How good would Ireland and Afghanistan be if they received the same funding as the full members? How good would Ireland be if Eoin Morgan still played for them, and they hadn't lost the services of Ed Joyce during a crucial period in their development?"

Mike i agree that we need to do everything we can to help these countries. But they must forst help themselves and really push to get there own first class system set up.. The only reason why ireland are ok at the game is because they play in our set up. So i think its kinda wrong to point the finger, when in fact the english set up aids ireland much more than it takes. At the end of the day my philospohy is players should only play for the systems country they have developed in anyway- but thats another discussion..

Ireland receive 1/12th of the funding Bangladesh get, despite it being far more expensive to employ people in Ireland, so of course it's going to be difficult to have a decent set-up. However they've outlined an 8 year plan.

I think you don't credit the Irish with enough of the work in developping this current side. Sure, quite a few play county cricket, but Wilson, Morgan, Porterfield, Rankin, K. O'Brien, Dockrell and Stirling are all products of the Irish development system. They were all brought up in Ireland and played for Irish youth sides before being picked up by the counties. The first 5 played for ireland U19s in 2003 - a long time before they were on any counties's books.

Of course they've improved by playing county cricket, but they'd improve even more if Ireland could employ them and play regular cricket against other international sides.

mystiroakey wrote:But they must forst help themselves and really push to get there own first class system set up..

The thing is that you can't just invent a FC setup just like that. It requires money, purpose and interest. I think I'm also correct in saying you have to be a Full Member to play domestic cricket which is recognised as FC/ List A anyhow.

Money comes from three main sources - the ICC, the spectators and the sponsors. The ICC provide 12 times* the funding to Bangladesh that they do to Ireland, and Bangladesh can only run a dysfunctional FC system, so I guess that Ireland can currently rule out ICC funding as helping them achieve this objective. If we take Ireland out of an ICC event they lose their main chance to win fans (and hence any small income they get from supporters), and also opportunities to attract sponsorship. Ireland will have benfited greatly in attracting spectators and sponsors for their bilateral internationals their summer from their World Cup performance. You can't expect to set up a FC system without good sponsorship, particularly as spectator interest is, quite frankly, likely to be minimal.

A FC competition has two purposes. First and foremost it is to exist in its own right, but it also can't function without the aim of supplying players to a Test team. Setting a system up now would hence have little merit.

If I were in charge of the ICC I'd be trying to admit Ireland as a Full Member - they are the strongest of the Associates both in cricketing terms (debatable) and administratively (not debatable). I'd also be hoping to award Full Member status to more countries as and when they are organising their cricket properly and have proper aspirations to compete at the highest level. A system which effectively says that Ireland can never be a Full Member is terribly unfair and badly flawed. Cutting the funding pie 11 ways rather than 10 shouldn't be a major hit, and I'd suggest that the funding system probably needs overhauling anyhow.

Once Ireland are a Full Member that wouldn't mean they would suddenly be automatically entitled to compete at ICC events, or would have to play Tests from day one. One of the issues with Bangladesh has been that they went from being in effectively Afghanistan's current position (and perhaps less competitive on the field) to playing Tests and ODIs and having a FC system overnight. I would say that were, hypothetically, Ireland to get Full Member status now that they should immediately play more bilateral ODIs and T20s (particularly vs Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and elsewhere where there are gaps in the schedule), work on setting up a FC system and aim at Test cricket, in say 3-4 years time.

Sorry, that was a bit more long and rambling than I thought it would be, but I hope I made my point.

* I knicked that figure from Mike. I trust that he's right

Super post Shelsey. Very enlightening.

Mike Selig wrote:Ireland receive 1/12th of the funding Bangladesh get, despite it being far more expensive to employ people in Ireland, so of course it's going to be difficult to have a decent set-up. However they've outlined an 8 year plan.

I think you don't credit the Irish with enough of the work in developping this current side. Sure, quite a few play county cricket, but Wilson, Morgan, Porterfield, Rankin, K. O'Brien, Dockrell and Stirling are all products of the Irish development system. They were all brought up in Ireland and played for Irish youth sides before being picked up by the counties. The first 5 played for ireland U19s in 2003 - a long time before they were on any counties's books.

Of course they've improved by playing county cricket, but they'd improve even more if Ireland could employ them and play regular cricket against other international sides.

Well they wouldnt improve more. but ireland as a team would improve more if they could employ they best players. However the world isnt a charity. If ireland tick the boxes they will become a test playing nation and then will have it all..It really,surely is up to them

Shelsey I would be happy to just gift Ireland test status and funding. But we cant be naive enought to suggest that should be the case. They need to tick the boxes first surely. maybe the ICC should make it easier i dunno, not sure on what they require. But either way thats something associates need to push to deal with if they want test status and part of the pie

Also i think we haver to consider that we cant realistically just let ireland in without Afganistan as well.

so it wouldnt be spliting the pie 11 ways it would be splitting it 12 ways.

Then we have the issue that the ICC will actually make less money from having to have less big match ups to accomodate lesser test nations..

so the total pie would be less(to start of with anyway)

Now i know that england and india could easily survive this- but what about the other nations?