By Peter Della Penna
ICC Americas is strongly considering a plan to restructure the top division in men’s and U-19 cricket to correct a competitive imbalance. The plan was discussed last weekend at the ICC Americas Regional Development Forum in Costa Rica and could be pushed through as early as 2012 according to USACA General Manager Manaf Mohamed.
“There’s a new division alignment that’s coming up that was discussed. It needs to be confirmed but they’re gonna change the alignment,” said Mohamed. “Instead of six teams in Division One, it would be four. The winner of Division Two would go into Division One.”
“Division One for the Region would be USA, Canada, Bermuda and one team from Division Two. They would play T20 along with 50 overs. So it’s gonna be a combination of both formats in the Division One tournament.” The realignment would not apply to women’s cricket or any junior cricket below the U-19 level within the region.
The move would address what some in the region feel is a lack of competitiveness outside the traditional top three. This was particularly evident at this February’s ICC Americas U-19 Division One tournament where USA, Canada and Bermuda routinely demolished the bottom three finishers, Cayman Islands, Bahamas and Argentina. The lone exception was a tight match between Bermuda and Cayman Islands which Bermuda won by four runs but lopsided contests sometimes finished in less than three hours and many administrators questioned how much either side benefitted from such contests.
Mohamed also said that the qualification process for the ICC U-19 World Cup would be undergoing changes. The process would be similar to how teams qualified prior to the creation of the global qualifier event in 2009.
“ICC have changed the qualification from 2014 for the U-19 World Cup,” said Mohamed. “There will be 16 teams. It will be the 10 Full Members and one team from each of the regionals. We usually have from the regionals two people would qualify to go to the global qualifier. There would not be that global qualifier anymore. The regional winner would automatically qualify. So you’ve got the 10 Full members, each of the regional winners, that would be 15, plus the host team and that would be from 2014.”
According to an ESPN Media Zone press release in March, the UAE will be hosting the 2014 ICC U-19 World Cup. UAE finished fifth in the 10-team Asian Cricket Council U-19 Elite Cup this past February, failing to reach the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland. However, Dubai does have some of the best facilities on offer since the opening of the ICC Global Cricket Academy in October of last year.
ICC Global Development Manager Tim Anderson and West Indies Cricket Board Vice President David Cameron were in attendance at the meetings in Costa Rica and Mohamed said that there is a proposal to form a regional Associate team at both the U-19 and U-15 level that would compete in West Indies domestic tournaments beginning in 2012. Not only would it be a more competitive squad than accepting an individual Associate team, but Mohamed says that from a financial standpoint, it could potentially alleviate costs from the individual Associate boards. If a combined team of Associate players played as an Americas regional team, Mohamed says that ICC Americas might cover any costs rather than the respective national boards for each player representing an Americas regional team.
Another piece of news from Mohamed is that the USA is being considered to host the ICC World Cricket League Division Four tournament due to take place in the summer of 2012. Mohamed feels that USA has a good chance of hosting the event, either in Fort Lauderdale or Los Angeles.
“It would be good to get a tournament like that,” said Mohamed. USA, Denmark, Nepal and Tanzania will be joined in Division Four by the top two finishers from Division Five, due to be held in Singapore next February.
The chances of Nepal being awarded the tournament are slim after riots marred USA’s group stage match against Nepal at Division Five in Kathmandu last year. In the wake of an ICC inquiry, Cricket Association of Nepal accepted an ICC directive to not host further international cricket at the Tribhuvan University Stadium until remedial measures were carried out.
Denmark only has one turf pitch in the country while Tanzania hosted Division Four in 2008 and no team except Singapore has been given the chance to host a WCL event more than once since the WCL was started in 2007. Singapore hosted Division Six in 2009 and the decision to make them the host of next year’s Division Five was viewed by some as a move to right a sense of injustice done to Singapore at Division Five in 2010.
Riots by the home crowd in the USA vs. Nepal game forced a lengthy delay to that match. The reduction of overs and revised target upon resumption of play helped Nepal finish above Singapore by a .004 margin on net run rate to qualify for WCL Division Four in Italy last August. Singapore had hoped to replace Nepal in 2010 ICC WCL Division Four but that plea was rejected by the ICC.