The Associate Problem

"To be or not to be" allowed is the question when it comes to Associate member participation in international cricket tournaments. The Australian Cricket Board and the ICC are not very popular with the associate members for their strong stance in curtailing the playing field to 10 teams in the 2015 World Cup.

Although the move may seem harsh on the associate members, it makes a lot of business sense. The ACB, unlike the BCCI, does not have an inexhaustible trove of sponsors. Moreover, there are far fewer sporting arenas for international cricket down under as opposed to India. Simply put, the ACB cannot afford to see more than 50% of the matches being mismatches and being watched by a handful of patrons in arenas like the MCG that seat more than 100000.

Of course, there are a couple of ways around this. Firstly, the ICC could make the World Cup a 16 team tournament with 4 groups of 4 each with the top 2 qualifying to the next round. In the next round the 8 qualifiers could be put in two groups of 4 with the top two in each group playing the semi finals. That would bring the total matches to 39 and still allowing more teams to participate.

From an economic perspective, the cricket boards could agree to host some group matches on club grounds. This is not something new. Before cricket started rolling in the big bucks, international matches were held at club grounds. If you don't believe me, check the ground where Kapil Dev made his epic 175* in the 1983 World Cup. Given modern broadcasting requirements, moving camera equipment to small grounds could be a hurdle. This, is however a logistics issue and not a technical hurdle. If the club grounds are chosen in and around a metropolis (Melbourne for example has a whole lot of such grounds like the one India played their warm up match on their last tour down under), the production teams could still move to and from such smaller grounds (India played their warm up at an oval with moderate stands and less than a couple of kilometers from the MCG!!)

Even small club grounds could have temporary tents set up for patrons and bring the cost of hosting the match down to a fraction of hosting it in a place like the MCG. The players' match fees could be footed by their respective boards with the ICC taking care of paying the Associate members' teams. In this way, the host nation could survive a whole lot of mismatches during the tournament from a monetary perspective.

The other risk is that of having a test playing nation being upset by a minnow at the group stage. Now, that might be a big threat when you have groups of 3 (ala 2007 World Cup) but with groups of 4, the risk is significantly reduced. With group matches starting simultaneously (ala Fifa world cup), every match could be afforded a reserve day in case of natural calamities.