Time to bite the bullet

The ICC should bite the bullet on the World Cup: find a way to build in a qualifying tournament that lets Associates dream of making it to the Finals, and make the Full Members fight to get there. The details of how to make sure Associates get enough match practice to be able to compete with that afforded by the FTP to Full Members are important. If some Full Members are to be automatically qualified via rankings then those will come from the FTP schedule and Associates need something similar. But the most important point remains the same: let the Associates dream of the World Cup.

It should feel like a World Cup game

The choice of which game to watch this morning (Ireland v. West Indies or England v. Bangladesh) was a no-brainer. Ireland are playing in an empty stadium at Mohali; Bangladesh are playing a home game. Doughty underdogs, yes, but this is a World Cup, and I like watching games that remind me I'm watching one. And hopefully, if Tamim gets off to a flyer, things will get really exciting.