A case of Parachuted funding for relegated Associates

On 14th April 2011, Uganda played a match against PNG and lost it by 1 run. What was critical about this match was that a win or tie would have made Uganda stay in Division 2 but this loss relegated them to Division 3 of World Cricket League. But this was not the critical part. The critical aspect was due to relegation into Div 3 Uganda no longer was part of ICC High Performance Program. Due to this there was a major cut in the funding for Uganda by the ICC. This first major effect was that the board was no longer able to give central contracts and the players lost out

A loss of ODI status can mean the players losing their central contracts for Kenya

Uganda are not the only case. Seeing the present level of performance Canada, Kenya might be on the verge of losing their ODI status and in return a major cut in funding. The cut is funding can be as high as 80% giving a sudden shock to the boards

Funding related to performance is not a unique feature in cricket. Infact most of the games also follow the performance related funding. In soccer the teams in premier division get more funding than those is the second division. Performance related funding pushes the team to reach higher performance level and for the teams at a higher level it pushes them to stay there and not relegate not to lose funding. This helps the game to increase the level of performance

However in most of the sports there is always a parachuted funding for teams which are relegated to lower levels. Parachuted funding means that there would not be drastic and sudden cuts, rather the cuts would be gradual. This is important so that it does not have a shock effect, rather allows team to settle down in a gradual manner. This in anyway does not mean the team will be sitting comfortably but there is a loss of funding.

So a Parachuted Funding would mean that Kenya if they lose ODI status this time the funding will not drop from 500,000$ to 100,000$ in straight one year, rather it might go to 350,000$ in first year, 215,000$ in Second year and then to 100,000$. This will mean that all the hard work put at ground level will not be washed away in 1 year and the board might strive for alternate resources but never allowing the team and board to be in comfort zone.

In a rapidly changing times for ICC, hopefully they will notice this very important requirement and act on it and not bring a case where a loss of 1 run means whole team losing their jobs.

Time to bring back ICC Knockout

In 1998 ICC came out with a brilliant tournament. It was to be hosted in a upcoming cricket country, give chance to few ODI nations to play in that and in a high octane knock out format, where is you miss the opposition hits. The tournament got a brilliant response from the first tournament in Bangladesh. The second tournament was even more exciting and the Indians defeating the favorites Australia and South Africa lost to Kiwis in the finals. However from 2002 ICC went for a change of format and removed the knock out format with a league system though small in size greatly increasing the number of matches.

Over time the pressure of time forced the tournament to be cut to just 8 teams making it a pointless tournament killing the purpose it was created for. This year in a complete change of tournament structuring, ICC Champions Trophy has been struck off now replacing it with the required ICC Test Championship. They also reduced the World T20 from 2 to 1 in 4 years. This now leads ICC to 3 tournaments in 4 years leaving 1 slot free.

How the proposed ICC format will look using the present ODI rankings. A short and interesting tournament

Cricket really needs to get aggressive and spread it to new markets. ICC Knockout is one of the exact tournament which is one size suits all though in small doses. Being a short tournament it can be easily fit in the FTP, it can be easily hosted in upcoming countries and the upcoming countries can get a chance to compete against Test Teams outside the World Cup and finally the format will keep everybody interested in the tournament. Even if the major teams loses early the tournament is short enough for ICC not to worry it will be dragged on.

Since 2007 ICC based on performance gives ODI status to 6 Associate teams. ICC Knockout gives us a good chance to make it a 16 team tournament with 10 Test Nations and 6 ODI Status Nations. To help spread the game ICC should host it in a upcoming country. It will help to take the game to non traditional markets.

The ICC is also going for reduction of World Cup from 2019 reducing it 10 nations. This leaves with a real possibility of Associate member left high and dry from ODI form of game and reduced to just playing T20 against full members. This is very counterproductive and hence becomes even more important for ICC to reintroduce the tournament.

I hope some good sense prevails in the ICC and we see it reintroduced it from 2018.

Busy

Hello All,

I would be kept busy and would not be able to write articles till January next year. This does not mean I will stop writing. Some time I have to give to settle my life. I would definite start back when this mission get's over with. Keep visiting and commenting here.

Thanks
Jashan

Review of ACC Emerging - Nepal

To start with the announcement that ACC Emerging would be a biennial tournament is a welcome decision. It will give the emerging Associate teams of Asia a very good exposure against good teams. Ideally the teams could have been part of Asia Cup, but it's better to have one bird in hand than two in the bush.

For the Nepal team it was perhaps the first time when they faced such a quality opposition. It should be perhaps a reflection of the opposition they will have to face regularly if they hope to get ODI status. But unfortunately they were placed in a oddly formed group of death. I do not know how ACC formed these groups. As per me the groups based on seeding should have been

Group A:- Ind U23, Bd U23, Afg, Sp
Group B:- SL U23, Pak U23, UAE, Nep

Anyhow Nepal had perhaps all the 3 top teams in it's group and a very big challenge to overcome. To start with they put up a very spirited performance against Afghanistan and perhaps dominated for 90% of the match but in the end sadly lost by 3 runs. It was the experience and temperament gained with it that lost them that match. The loss took such a toll that they were pretty much thrashed in the next 2 matches.

So what are the positives and negatives that the tournament offered. For the positives perhaps it is the exposure that team gained. Till now the team has been playing the likes of teams in Div 5 to Div 3 with weak teams like Mozambique to stronger ones like USA. But even the likes of USA and Uganda are no match to quality of India or Pakistan U23. This exposure will give each player an aspect to reflect upon and work on it. The coach can also make players work harder reflecting them on their weaknesses.
Secondly some individual good performances by Paras, Basant, Sagar & Subash would give a boost to morale of these players and give them confidence for upcoming matches. These were after all performances against some very quality sides.
Thirdly the overall tour of Sri Lanka and Singapore was able to give the coach the time and matches to experiment some younger players and different combination. The presence of quality opposition were the real test of the players

However the Negatives far outweigh the Positives. Firstly in the whole tournament reflected how the team lost it's self confidence. After the first match which did not go in their way, afterwards the team seemed to have lost morale and could not regain it in rest of the tournament. The big tournament is infact half mind games. You have the lows and then you have to bounce back. Except of few individual the team effort looked missing
Secondly the team failed in all aspects. Batting was a bigger let down as it failed in all 3 matches. Bowling also was pretty ordinary against the test teams. With such performances Nepal cannot hope to challenge the likes of Netherlands or Scotland it faces in future.
Finally it should be a realization of difference in the level between it and top teams which needs to be plugged for future. The team surely needs to work all areas especially building partnerships and rotating strikes & fast strike bowling.

So the next question comes what should be the future coarse. Is all the hope lost. No not at all. The team surely has the potential to be playing both 2014 World T20 and 2015 World Cup. However for that to happen the team needs to have a structure plan

1. The coach needs to work hard on the mental strength of the team which will help them to keep cool in the matches and also if required bounce back in tournament. As the level of competition will be much harder the bounce back will require much harder mental strength than what it was required in ICC WCL Div 3. If need be some experts can take some sessions with the team. This is an area which is usually ignored but very crucial.

2. Batting is the area that the team will have to work upon. For that if CAN can get some batting experts for two months, 1 month before T20 qualifier and 1 month before WCQ will be greatly helpful. The team has potential as shown by Paras, Subash and Sagar, but it would be building partnerships, running between wickets, working on technique that are more crucial than individual brilliance that is the need of the hour.

3. Pace Bowling is the Achilles heel of Nepal. The WCQ is in NZ and WC is also in Aus and NZ. In these places without a good pace strike bowling is huge disadvantage. Nepal's traditional strength of spinners can be easily blunted there. The young pacers of Sawad and Karn have shown some hope but much more needs to be done. These 2 along with the veteran Binod Das need to be given bigger exposure. They can be perhaps sent to NZ or Eng for some advanced training and getting acclimatized to the conditions there.

4. More quality exposure is key. The team got a good exposure in SL and Singapore. Now it will get back and work on the various opportunities. However to evaluate the progress the team is making CAN should ensure that they get to play quality team. For Dubai, a tour of Sri Lanka against similar oppositions they played this time would greatly help. If not there similar practice matches in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh would also do. If CAN is not able to arrange the same a 5 Match series against Afghanistan in UAE would perhaps a win win situation where both board can earn some revenue and good practice.

5. Finally there needs to be a special focus on WCQ in NZ. This tournament will be make of break for Nepali cricket. A good performance here will get Nepal ODI Status, more funding, a chance to play matches against test teams. play multi day matches in Intercontinental Cup. Hence this is the tournament. For the WCQ in NZ, CAN would have to get more proactive and get the team to play in similar conditions which can be NZ itself or Eng, Scot, Ire, Neth or Canada. These all are costly places but it would mean high risk but high returns.

These are some crucial times for Nepali Cricket. A good effort by the team, coach and board will be a game changer for the sport in the country or it can be a chance missed which everybody may be forced to woo for many years. Nepal does not need news like it has be fined by ICC but rather some proactive work by CAN who should wake-up from their sleep and finally contribute to the game in the country. 

Felicitation vs Real Ground Work?

Recently the biggest fan club in Nepal got together and conducted a felicitation program for the Nepal Cricketers. They were able to get some leading movie stars of Nepali cinema and got a good coverage in Media also. All the players were present along with the successful coach. The Fan Club was really happy in conducting the event.
The though that comes to my mind immediately is should this be the top priority for Nepali cricket or does it lies somewhere else. The Nepal team has been very successful in recent years winning Div 4, then ACC Trophy, Qualifying for World T20 Qualifier and Div 3(Though with hand of god in it), and many hope that they will make it to both 2014 World T20 as well as 2015 World Cup getting the ODI status. Since the time they have started winning they have been showered with the gift. This is where I see the south Asian mentality starting to kick in, not with honoring the players after all they are a talented bunch but with the issue of short term measures

Can Nepal afford to be bound by short term measures or thinking long term is the key?

At present the biggest worry for me is the youth that is on offer for Nepal. Many writer have earlier pointed out that this time Nepal U-19 came with the worst ever performance finishing 4th in the tournament losing to Afghanistan, UAE & Malaysia. At U-16 level Nepal also lost to Malaysia. It is the first time in many years that a player from U-19 team could not make it into the line up of the senior team. These are very serious issues. Nepal at junior levels was supposed to be unbeatable few years ago. Baring Afghanistan, where there is real passion for game any other youth team in Asia beating Nepal is a very serious issue. The pressure will be felt few years down the line when the Pipeline of players would finish

Nepal presently would have issue of resources and NCFC creditably has been able to garner resources from fans spread across the world. However the money collected should be spent judiciously on long term projects. I would go by a Chinese saying "Give a fish to hungry man and he eats today. Teach the hungry man how to fish and he eats for life". This summarizes the point of investing in long term.

This picture says a thousand words

The first thing that comes into my mind is various equipment that the present and future set of players would require. There are many training equipment or gym equipment that coach would have in his wishlist. Taking right people into loop such equipment would keep benefit players for many years. This is the place where Nepal team needs most support and a help here is the real help

Secondly the other area which needs big attention is the school cricket. I am sure that many students would be watching or playing cricket. A School Tournament in Kathmandu and some other bigger cities would help the upcoming players in these schools to showcase their talent. The best of the talent across the schools could then be given a chance in front of the coach. We all know that Nepal team is in big need of some good pacers. Talent identified here could have been trained for future for benefit of the team

Finally in future it would be beneficial to arrange to send many players across the world for advanced sports training. These players after being trained can pass some tips to other players and whole team gains from the experience.

I am not criticizing the Nepal Cricket Fan Club here, in my view they are the most genuine fans here who do many selfless acts for Nepali cricket. But as a genuine fan of Nepal & Associate Cricket it is my duty to criticize certain actions and guide it towards what according to me would be betterment of Cricket in the country.

Lets hope that we soon see Nepal team playing in the top cricket tournament and showing the huge potential it has in it. These certainly would be some of the most exciting times for Nepali cricket but we should not get carried away by it and keep an eye for future.

10 Things that will happen if Ireland win the 2015 World Cup

Ireland cricket team has been making quite the right noises for some years. From the victory against Pakistan in 2007 world cup, famous win over England and recently a very good series against Pakistan again. It is of no doubt that they are much above the other associates and many people want them to be elevated to test status. With more exposure they can soon join the best in the world. Now what will happen if in 2015 they win the world? Can they, I think with a few improvements they can but what will be the consequences?

1. England team will have all Irish line up for Next World Cup
The England team has a habit of poaching players specially from South Africa, and sometimes from Ireland and Zimbabwe. The England team will be hosting the 2019 World Cup so to be safe they would want to have all the Irish players in their line-up. How will they safeguard the same? Well it is quite simple they have a ICC rule for it. A player can play for a Non Test Nation (Ireland) & Next Day play for a Test Nation (England). But that player after playing for England would have to wait for 4 years to go back to Ireland. Surprised, well that is our ICC

All England would need to do ensure that every Irish player plays for them immediately and till next world cup they cannot play for Ireland!!!

Like Ed Joyce, whole Ireland team expected to wear blue's!!!!

2. Triple heart attack- BCCI, ECB & CA Chiefs
Well don't be surprised. These are the 3 people who are still in the colonial mindset and want cricket to stay that way. Their years of effort would go for a toss. So what can we expect, probably a shock of their life and a heart attack

3. World Cup will be reduced to 4 nations
There would be talk around the people in Test Nations of the useless format of the 2015 World Cup and how it somehow favored weak team like Ireland to take advantage of Rain, some one off matches and somehow win the world cup. There will be talks to giving the world cup it's right size and not the huge 2 month drag format.
A 10 team 2019 world cup would not satisfy them because the number of matches has not reduced. So a perfect representative World Cup of 4 Nations - India, Australia & England get automatic entry and 1 spot open for rest of the World. After all it is a World Cup and representation of World is required (Pun Intended)

4. India, Aus, Eng get super member status
Getting Cricket on the right path would be very much required. These 3 countries who contribute 95% of the money want their money to be safeguarded and threaten to go on their own. Under pressure the boards agree to the same and these 3 get super member status. From the next world cup (Which is 4 nation as we remember) they get an direct entry. For T20 World Cup, they get directly into the Semi's. For Test World Cup, no other country is worthy of playing it and is 3 team closed affair.
Well cricket is where it should be, back to colonial times as the Big 3 wanted.

5. David Cameroon Government Falls
With the Paddies winning core English game their is uproar in England. They watched with pain when Windies won it. Then land of Seditious Fakir(India) won it, they still accepted it. Aussies winning meant raging people. The Colonial outposts Pakistan and Sri Lanka winning had the pot almost full. But now it was the next neighbor and people would not be able to face such a site. The country is upset at England not being able to save it's culture and the huge protests force government to fall

6. North Ireland chooses to leave United Kingdom
This win gives a new hope in North Ireland. They no longer want to be associated with the Main Island since they are even better than them in Cricket. Hence it is decided and North Ireland chooses to leave UK

7. IPL finally gets Kevin O'Brien
Suddenly he is wanted by all the teams. The IPL teams line up for him and he finally makes his IPL debut. In fact KOB get's so much popular that so many products are behind him to be doing commercials for them


8. Ireland get it's first World Cup
They have not won it in Rugby Union or League, they have not done it in Football. Gaelic Football doesn't have a World Cup. So this would be a first World Cup for Ireland.


9. Irish Whiskey Ahoy, Ireland a Indian Tourist Hotspot
Suddenly there would be a big craze for Irish Whiskey in India.

Rumor would be people who drink it have sudden rise to power. There would be talks of Ireland as a magical land, and suddenly Indians would be visiting Ireland for Holidays.

Then there would be few who would realize the beauty of Ireland after all it will be all in news for all the reasons and would want to visit it

10. Wales cricket team is formed
Till now the Welsh ignored the fact that they play as part of England. Suddenly with Ireland winning the World Cup, the Welsh realize that they infact are a older cricket playing nation, they have more clubs, they have more players, better infrastructure and if Ireland can do it, they surely can. In an overnight session, Wales Parliament passes a motion to separate from England Cricket team

This article has been written in light humor and does not intent to hurt the feeling of anyone. It wishes to highlight some irony's in World Cricket. Kindly read it for fun and not get serious behind it :) Enjoy

A Separate Wales Team

Cricket has been a game given by Britain to most of the established teams. However one of the most conspicuous absence from International cricket has been a Wales Cricket Team. It is surprising because we see other members of United Kingdom like Ireland(N Ireland plays as part of Ireland) and Scotland also playing and having decent standards. It becomes even more surprising when we get to know that channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey have their own separate teams!!

When we look at other sports Wales has it's own separate team. The English Wales rivalry is well known in both Rugby Union and League. Wales also has it's separate team in other sports like Football, Hockey or Basketball.

So that brings us to a question what about Wales team? Well to start with Wales are represented in cricket. How, the England team we know that plays is actually not a England team but rather a England and Wales Team. Yes and the Board ECB is actually England and Wales Cricket Board with W surprisingly ommitted

It is not like Wales never had a team. Infact Wales team used to play against visiting teams like New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies during 20's & 30's. They infact have managed to defeat West Indies in the past. Wales also participated in the 1979 ICC trophy. They did very well in the group winning 2 matches, losing 1 and 1 match abandoned against the Sri Lanka, who narrowly piped them on Run Rate to qualify for the Semi Finals.

There always have been demand for a separate Wales team. The treatment given by ECB (With W missing) is not appreciated in Wales. Lately the demand for a Wales team are growing louder with the issue being raised in the Welsh Parliament. However can a Wales team actually be successful. There are many factors which suggest a affirmative answer.

To start with the domestic number of players in Wales is higher than both for that of Ireland and Scotland. Glamorgan the County team representing Wales has won the county championship 3 times while Ireland, Scotland, Denmark and Netherlands who have taken part in county could not even come close to such performances.

Wales also have got the infrastructure in form of the Swalec stadiums which is one of the 12 stadiums of England. Not only this a Wales team when last played had actually defeated England and Welsh Player like Simon Jones was instrumental in helping England win the Ashes.

With such good prospects I expect the Welsh team to actually do very well internationally and can easily challenge the likes of teams like Bangladesh, Zimbabwe,Ireland or Scotland. A Wales team can also open the door's for a Euro Cup in which England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland & Netherlands can take part.

However a separate Welsh team would not come without challenges. Firstly it puts the risk of losing funding as ECB would not be sharing rough 2 M$ of annual funding it gives to it's counties. Secondly the Swalec stadium would also lose as it will lose lucrative matches like Ashes, and England international matches (Like it is one of the 3 stadiums for Champions trophy). Thirdly it would mean Glamorgan moving out of county championship as it happened with Scotland after they left England Team. Finally Wales would have to form it's own domestic structure and like Ireland would have risk of it's players moving to England for better prospects

Glamorgan playing a County match. Can we see the county players wearing a national jersey soon?

As the move for a separate Wales team would be supported by Government some funding from Government is expected. Besides the regular ICC funding Wales would be easily available for TAPP funding. Some private funding is also expected and rivalry in the British Isles against Ireland and Scotland can definitely get some level of sponsorships

Finally to have a quality set up is a challenge faced by all the European teams like Ireland, Scotland and Netherlands is quite similar. Some teams to start with have formed a first class tournament. Ireland has already started a 3 team First Class tournament and so did Scotland with a 2 team tournament. Netherlands has been having a annual North V South matches. The key would be as it the case with Rugby, the 4 nations can come together and form a 10 Team first class tournament (3 Teams each From Wales and Ireland & 2 Teams each From Scotland and Netherlands). This can in provide a quality domestic cricket for teams and also source of income for the home boards.

In the circumstances going in Wales I expect Wales team would be formed soon. Hopefully it is formed before the 2015 World Cup so that it can be in the process to reach the 2019 World and gain ODI status for future. The team would face many challenges but I am sure would have been the case in other sports. Let's hope to see the rise of another good teams in cricket soon.

The new fans and the burden of expectations.

Fans are always a pleasure in sports. The dynamism of sports is driven by fans itself because they instill energy in the sports and more importantly money to keep the sport alive. Cricket also has it's share of fans.  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies and to some extent in teams like Australia, England (Remember Barmy Army) are the teams with the solid fan base behind them and their opinion cannot be ignored. Perhaps Indian team would be the team with 1.2 Billion as the largest number of fans behind a team.

Cricket in Associate world is not as lucky as most test teams. Most of the multinational tournaments happen in front of empty grounds. But this is not the case everywhere. A typical match in Nepal, Afghanistan will get ten of thousands of people to the ground. It would get an decent gathering at places like Ireland or Scotland.

Here in Associate in the country of highest mountains, the fans have started a commendable task as big as everest itself. The fans were always active here. Infact when I started following Associate Cricket it was a website dedicated to Nepal cricket ( A real rare at that time) that got my interest. Then the fans had the biggest cricket group and fan pages on facebook, discussing about Nepal cricket and did not discard the support even at tough times like when the team got stuck in Div 4. They all had a belief ( Still have the Belief) that team is meant for something higher and would soon be joining the big boys.

Then this year came div 4 and the team had a cent percent record here and returned to streets filled with fans. This is the time when few die hard fans came together to form a fan club. One of them my real good friend (Birat Raya) along with others went from post to poll to get an official nod for the fans club and was successful. This I believe after present coach Pubudu is the most important development for Nepal Cricket

Fans Club around the world play an important role. In some sports the member of fan clubs are part of board of teams to represent the fan's point of view while making decisions and also get teams to identify talent from Grass root levels.

The Nepal Cricket Fan Club (NCFC) is already getting resounding support. As a first step they got an electronic scoreboard installed in the ground. Then in this week came an important landmark "Hamrocricket.com" their exclusive fan club page. I liked the name when about a year ago when Birat bounced it off to me.

Nepal has a huge fan base

However these are just small steps in the long journey the club needs to go for. I would list down few steps the club should aspire as part of their journey

1. Written Constitution and a Democratic Institution
An important part of a young organisation is defining a constitution that clearly helps it define the vision, mission and the path that will be taken by the organisation. Defining a constitution also ensures that it builds in transparency and trust of the fans who will be pinning their hopes on the club

Being democratic is another part of being transparent. However a person may love a thing but it is the critics that makes the best out of him. The Iranian King loved the country and wanted to make it a superpower but still was thrown out in a revolution because there was no democracy to let off the steam. An election will keep bringing in new set of people who will bring in new ideas

2. Permanent Face- Salaried Employs
In any successful country or company there are always a permanent face and a new face that keep coming. Like in democratic countries the Politicians are the new face and Bureaucrats are the permanent face. This helps in bringing the stable face for organisation. Even in private companies in sales they have their employs at location as new faces and distributors as the constant faces.
I am jumping the gun but when things get stabilized then NCFC should definitely have some central and regional salaried representatives.

3. Nominal Paid Membership
There is a saying "There are no free lunches in the world". NCFC surely needs loads of members but it should keep a nominal fee for membership. I am not saying something like Rs 1000 a month but it might be token like Rs 100/year
Why because it will bring in 2 benefits- Firstly it would bring in seriousness of members who would now have stakes in the organisation and would force it to be accountable and secondly it would bring in a source of income for NCFC

4. Conducting Regional Tournaments
This would be the real and most important contribution to cricket. NCFC should have conduct these tournaments across the country where it will make teams from the rural to come out and unearth the raw talent. Then they could identify the potential talent and bring them into contact with coaches and selectors to unearth the best of them. I always believe that Nepal Cricket team does not represent the best XI. According to me there surely are many players who will be better than some in the team
We must remember that Pakistan team always brought in pacers who belonged to poor families and did not know English. There were the most lethal lot. India came out much stronger when players from smaller cities started coming in like the present captain Dhoni

5. Supporting the players for specialized training
Although this is the job of CAN, but we know that finances can be a constraint for CAN. Here NCFC can really step up and contribute. It has already done the support like it already did for sending 2 players to Sri Lanka.  


Personally I am very positive for NCFC as I know some of the die hard Nepal cricket lovers like Birat Raya, Anna Bhola have taken the realm of the organisation. I am really hopeful and hope that Nepal team would be joining the big boys and the Rhino Army would be supporting their team in T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. 

A better way of Funding Required for ICC?

Funding surely is a tricky business for ICC members. Baring a handful of about 6 out of 106 members, the rest 100 are solely dependent on ICC funding.

The situation becomes even more critical when we know that 70% of Funding is due to 1 country and next 20% is due to 2 countries. Hence how much funding is dependent on what type of a member a country is (Test, Associate or Affiliate), additionally for Associates what is your performance is (ODI Status (6 Teams), High Performance Program (4 Teams) and Rest). Besides this finally which region a member belongs to also means different funding for members. There are 5 regions of ICC- Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and East Asia Pacific. Belonging to Asia means most funding and most tournaments as Asia CC get's around half of ICC Development fund and other half is distributed amongst the other 4 Regions.

This means a Test Nation (10 Teams) get roughly 7.5 M$ / Year, while the 6 ODI nations get 0.65M$, 4 HPP members get 0.4 M$, 27 balance Associates get .16 M$ and the 59 Affiliate get miserly 0.015 M$ from ICC. The region funding varies and it mostly covers cost of tournaments.

So this means a country such big as Indonesia with a population of over 220M  get's roughly 30,000$ has to develop it's cricket, take the team for ICC tournaments. It also means that a country of Bermuda with a population with 60,000 and Nepal with a population of 40M get the same funding of 0.1 M$ from ICC.

Also when a Associate member looses the performance based funding it can have major consequences. Uganda when lost it's HPP membership it meant Uganda Cricket Association had to end central contracts with whole teams as it could no longer afford it. And this happened when Uganda lost a match to PNG by just 1 run and that run cost them roughly 240,000$ and entire team's salary

If we try to understand why ICC formed such funding, it was because it was only in last 15 years they expanded and tripled their membership. At that time they were for a standardized approach for membership as it did not have expertize to manage the critical aspect.

On top of that as Cricket is not an Olympics sport, this means that Government's are not interesting in funding the sport.

ICC has recently made some changes. From 2013 Associate members instead of the fixed 0.16 M$ will start getting 0.1 M$ fixed and rest based on a scorecard. The ICC also has formed a TAPP funding where based on need as presented by various members ICC funding. Ireland, Scotland & Netherlands have got 1.5 M$ for 3 years based on this funding.

However now the time has come for a complete restructuring of Funding. The funding should be based on certain criteria so that the development can be carried out in a much more sustainable way. The ICC needs to take care on few points

1. Performance of Board
ICC needs to define performance parameters for all it's members like School & Junior Cricket Participation, Transparency in Operations and money, Government Support, Domestic Cricket Tournaments and Scorecard each of the boards. The more the Score more the ICC level of funding. This will means boards taking much more long term sustainable steps

2. Population and Area of Countries
Population and Area of countries have a deep impact of how funding can be utilized. USA and Bermuda may be both Associate members and presently should never get same funding (As is the case today). USA is a huge country with 315 M population and 9 M Sq Km area while Bermuda is just 0.06 M Population. So definitely these factors need to be considered while funding is given.

3. Performance of Team
The better the performance of team, the more exposure ICC needs to get for the team. Hence a Ireland should be given a chance to play more Test teams or their A teams and also go for a sustainable domestic first class tournaments.
The better teams need that extra thrust to make them more self sustaining for future and in long term releases more money for the next level of upcoming teams

4. Parachuted Funding
The case of Uganda where when they lost HPP membership the whole team was out of central contracts. When a team in it's bad days, the funding should go out in a Parachuted ways. Uganda which lost funding from 0.4 to 0.16 M$ in 1 year instead should have gone down in 3 years. That way the board can plan for a comeback. Now it become a double blow, the membership and also lot the funding.

5. Full Members to be brought in the funding plan
Presently all the funding rules are applicable only for Associate and Affiliate members. ICC should make the whole structure more open, where if Ireland perform well they should be able to play Test Matches and Zimbabwe may lose out. Also the difference of 7.5 M$ to 0.6 M$ should be removed.
 Yes ICC will need to support the full members for playing Test matches but this should not mean a 12.5 times difference of funding. The ICC should be transparent in why and how part of funding for each member

Most of these things were covered by Woolf's report. ICC instead of even discussing it has pushed it aside. If ICC has to move with times it will need to come out of the colonial elite mindset and in sync with modern methods. Hoping for the best.