The recent decision by the ICC to exclude Ireland from the 2015 Cricket World Cup is obviously galling from an Irish perspective, but should also be regarded as one from an international cricket perspective. The sport is similar to rugby in that the limited number of countries that are competitive is severely limited on a global scale and this hampers both games. When a new country begins to break through in terms of progress, as World Cup victories over Pakistan and England have demonstrated the potentiality of Irish participation, the strongest possible encouragement should be given.
If the decision to exclude non-Test status nations is taken, why not permit the possibility for it to become easier for countries to earn such a status? It is obvious that the standard should not become too easy to achieve as the quality of cricket would inevitably suffer. But why not put countries like Ireland on a more clearly defined ‘development path’ towards earning test status, perhaps by competing in a number of trial Test series against other sides already with the status? In sport, nations improve best by competing regularly against the most accomplished sides in the given sport.
The Irish side of 2015 may well be substantially better than nations such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and to not permit participation on this basis would be an injustice that should be prevented.
