The minnows (Ganguly’s favorite type of Cricket team 
) have taken center stage in the World Cup in the group stage. Of the 24 matches in the group stage, minnow teams feature in all but four. 40% of the total games in the world cup involve the minnows, and therefore are either non-contests or feature cricket of club level on the World Stage. World records are being created and broken. Arguments in favor and against the inclusion of minnow teams in the World Cup are numerous, and are in my view unsatisfactory. The argument in favor – that in order for minnows to develop, they need to play superior opposition, holds little water, because playing 2 matches every 3-4 years against top quality opposition is not going to improve minnow standards any more than watching 2-3 years of Test cricket live. The anti-minnow argument is a non-starter, because a “World Cup” with 8 top level teams is probably even more ridiculous than the winners of the annual American baseball season being crowned “World Champions” – at least the baseball season involves a significant number of competitive teams and very few walk over games. Cricket has to grow, and for that it has to involve lesser Cricketing little leaguers.
I need to change the paragraph here, lest the baseball analogies start getting out of hand…. The basic questions then are as follows: What is the point of the Cricket World Cup? Does the participation of minnows dilute the competition? Is competition amongst the top eight nations always highly strung, competitive sport?
With a little bit of imagination (some of us might require more lots of imagination here), one could consider the idea that in the past 2-5 years, every time Australia have played, it has seemed as though they have been competing against the minnows. Might Australia have realistically claimed at some point that it ought to be allowed to field 2 Test teams – would that have provided superior quality cricket than say Australia v India or Australia v England? If quality were the sole criterion, then could such a request have theoretically been turned down? Home Test matches have been no contests for a long time – especially for Australia and South Africa. India, in certain conditions, have enjoyed the same superiority.
The notion of affirmative action (which is what the involvement of minnows amounts to) is integral to international sport. A national sporting team is an inherently ad hoc sporting formation. In purely competitive cricketing terms, India might have been best served by producing about 3 Test teams – this would have created an optimal first class structure feeding an international team – manageable in complexity and in terms of the number of players who would have to be considered for each spot in the eleven. Club Football is an example of a purely competitive sporting creation. Players are bought, sold and traded with tactical and strategic motives. Development systems are fiercely competitive and highly strung.
As long as we claim the joy of national sporting achievement, there can not be a narrowly competitive focus of tournaments like the World Cup. An international club cricket league and a Champions League for Cricket clubs might produce the relentless high quality contest that minnow naysayers desire, but it will not have the warmth international competition. It is the only way to retain the primacy of sport over business. Business must serve sport and not the other way round. Affirmative action in my view is a good thing. Why must we complain about it in something as minor as World Cup Cricket?
In any case, even in football, the full Brazilian or Argentinian sides (with the club superstars playing for nation and not for club) would still be more than a match for any club side in the world.
Im very sorry about the terrible pun which is the title of this post… im unable to change it inspite of my own low opinion of it……
