ASSOCIATES

The Forgotten 93

by Tim Wigmore • Last updated on

Not since the 1980s have on-field opportunities for Associate nations been so scarce. © Getty

For Associate cricket, these are days many thought would never come. Last week, it was confirmed that Afghanistan and Ireland would be elevated to Full Member status of the ICC and gain Test status to boot: a monumental achievement, notwithstanding that Zimbabwe will still receive significantly more ICC cash that the two combined. But what of the other 93, the remaining Associate nations in the ICC?

These countries, the bottom 92% of the ICC's members, will receive only 9% of the $1.7 billion in grants the ICC gives to its member nations from 2016-23, about $160 million. That's a drop of over two-thirds on what Associates, including Afghanistan and Ireland, stood to receive this cycle before the Big Three restructuring of 2014 - almost $600 million.

The puny amount that the remaining Associates will now receive - an average of $200,000 a year each - is not only deleterious to their prospects of developing competitive men's teams. It also impedes them from developing women's cricket, one of the centrepieces of the ICC's current strategy.

Indeed, for all the optimism about world cricket finally embracing expansionism, the 93 now face being even more bereft of cash than before the ICC's new constitution and financial models were passed last week. The extra money to Afghanistan and Ireland means that the remaining 93 Associates face their share of funding cut by $10 million over eight years compared to under the Big Three model.

It would not have taken much for this to have been averted. Most obviously, India could have taken a lower share to help world cricket's poorest nations, perhaps in return for a formal IPL window. India will now receive $406 million over eight years, two and a half times the 93 Associates combined - and, of course, the vast majority of India's income comes from other sources; India received ten times as much from TV rights to internationals cricket and the IPL last year as they did from ICC cash. But it wasn't just India who were the problem: if England had agreed to receive the same ICC funding as Australia, the pot for the remaining 93 Associates wouldn't have needed to be cut at all; the same would have been true if the other eight Full Members had agreed to receiving $1.25 million less each over eight years. Ultimately this isn't about altruism; instead, it is about vision and insurance against international cricket becoming a little less popular in its current strongholds. Other sports do not spread their wealth around more equitably for reasons of charity, but because it's in their best long-term interests.

It's not just about the money, either. Not since the 1980s have on-field opportunities for Associate nations been so scarce. There seems no indication of the contraction of the World Cup to just ten teams being undone - even though the last two World Cup, featuring 14 countries, shattered overall viewing records and the 2015 event was hailed by the ICC as "the most popular ever". Even the World Twenty20, proclaimed as cricket's great globalising tool, remains a 10-team event masquerading as something more inclusive; it is likely to expand to 12 in the main draw for Australia 2020 but this remains shockingly lacking in ambition compared to other sports. Forget football and its looming 48-team event; the Basketball World Cup has 32 countries; the Rugby World Cup is long-established as 20 teams; the World Baseball Classic has 16. Even kabbadi's World Cup has 12.

Associates are not merely locked out of ICC global events; outside these, they are being ignored too. Remarkably, Scotland's two ODIs with Zimbabwe earlier this month were the first ODIs between a Full Member and an Associate other than Afghanistan and Ireland since the 2015 World Cup. The new 13-team ODI structure will help one team significantly, but it is now likely that each team will play only eight series over a four-year cycle, not 12 as previously thought. And, with apparent contempt for meritocracy, the identity of the 13th team might now no longer be the winners of the World Cricket League Championship - most likely the Netherlands - after all.

All the while, world cricket continues to obfuscate over whether to bid to join the Olympic Games. More than anything else, this would be a catalyst for cricket to globalise. Just look at what has happened to rugby because of rejoining the Games last year: the sport is now on the curriculum in Brazil, China and the USA, and national Olympic federations spent over $30 million in preparation for the Games. Germany, which today receives about $200,000 a year from the ICC, would stand to receive another $1 million a year from the government by dint of being an Olympic sport: a microcosm of how the Games could fund cricket's expansionism - with governments, not the ICC or Full Members, footing the bill. The effect would be particularly transformative for the women's game, because national Olympic associations normally award female sport the same funding as men's sports. Since rugby's return to the Games was confirmed eight years ago, overall participation in women's rugby has risen 11-fold.

The talent in cricket's outposts has never been greater. This decade, the total number playing in Associate nations has trebled, to 1.4 million. Scotland defeated Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in 50-over matches this summer, even while missing at least four first choice players; the Netherlands, who don't even have ODI status, thumped Zimbabwe by 149 runs on Saturday. Earlier this year Hong Kong enticed players like Misbah-ul-Haq, Darren Sammy and Kumar Sangakkara to play in a T20 league.

Yet, with the odd notable exception - Nepal and the USA - all this potential risks being ignored by cricket's governing elite. By promoting Afghanistan and Ireland, albeit not on genuinely equal terms to the weakest existing Full Members, the danger is that world cricket will give the impression of reform without embracing the genuine changes it needs to give it a chance of becoming the world's second favourite sport - let alone realise the ICC's mantra of becoming the "world's favourite sport". Associates railing against the inequities in the world game might be like trees falling in the forest without anyone around to hear the sound. Afghanistan's and Ireland's elevation renders them far less likely to rail against absurd decisions like the contraction of the World Cup, saving the ICC from unwanted bad PR.

Fifteen years ago, the notion that Afghanistan or Ireland could play Test cricket would have been utterly absurd. Ireland had never qualified for a World Cup; the most recent time they had failed to do so, they had to enlist a journalist as a substitute fielder. Afghanistan had not even played an official international, and the country's security situation hardly seemed conducive to cricket expanding.

So there was nothing inevitable that the 11th and 12th Full Members of the ICC would be Afghanistan and Ireland. In many ways it is a historical accident, made possible by happenstance and just enough opportunity to shame world cricket into action - all of which might forever be denied to today's emerging nations.

As well as luck, tenacity and skill, Associates now probably need at least two of three things if they are to advance: reasonable access to ICC funds; regular participation in inclusive global events, as Afghanistan and Ireland enjoyed from 2007-15; and, most importantly, cricket to be in the Olympic Games, opening up government support and engaging a new audience. Right now, the forgotten 93 face a future devoid of all three. Unless that changes, then it scarcely matters who the next Afghanistan and Ireland could be, because they will never get a proper chance to show it.

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