Chapter 5:-Europe Division 3 (T20) Championship 2011, World Twenty20 Qualifier

After Africa, Americas and EAP it was not time for Europe to start the qualification process for 2012 ICC World T20.  6 teams Slovenia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Estonia, Bulgaria and Sweden started their journey hopefully to qualify for the highest level possible for them. Though most teams were built on Expats or people of cricket playing nation's origin like Pakistani's, Indian, English etc there were few teams which had local players. Estonia had majority local players and many local players in the host team Slovenia.
The tournament was hosted by Slovenia and Austria. No team was making a debut in the tournament as all teams had been part of Div 5 and 6 of Europe in the OD format. The favorite of the tournament were Sweden along with the Hosts Slovenia. The tournament was quite low key in the media as compared to the tournament of Africa, America and EAP where the news regularly came out in the local newspapers. Perhaps the dominance of Soccer specially the Big 4 league and Champions Trophy is too how for others sports to make little space for themselves. Hopefully in future, the weight-age of cricket news will increase outside the British Isles also.
The tournament started with Estonia making a 240+ run score against the hosts which proved a task even higher than Everest. Sweden kept the tag of favorites and did not loose even a singe game and topping the pool qualifying for Div 2. Slovenia could not take much advantage of them being hosts. After Estonia they lost to Sweden and then finished the tournament losing the last match of tournament to Czech Republic.

The table was as follows

                P   W  NR   L   Pts    NRR
Sweden          5   5   0   0    10   4.78
Estonia         5   3   0   2     6   0.19
Slovenia        5   2   0   3     4  -0.15
Czech Republic  5   2   0   3     4  -0.43
Turkey          5   2   0   3     4  -2.36
Bulgaria        5   1   0   4     2  -1.12

Chapter 4:-Americas Division 2 (T20) Championship 2011, World Twenty20 Qualifier

After Belize won a promotion to Div 2, it was now time for action. Hosted in Suriname the winner would not only have promotion to Div 1 but also qualification to World Cricket League Div 8. There were 6 teams taking part:- Hosts Suriname, Div 3 promoted Belize, favorites Bahamas and Panama, Turks and Caicos & Brazil.

Bahamas who regularly play in Div 1 were the clear favorites. Suriname and Panama were expected to put some pressure on the favorites.

The tournament went along with 5 team fighting for the top spot. Brazil was outclassed by all teams. Finally Suriname winning 4 of the 5 matches came out on the Top. Panama, Belize and Turks & Caicos Islands ending with 6 points with Panama coming on top on Run Rate. The favorite's Bahama had a dismal tournament with just winning 2 games and 4 points.

The final points table was

                   P   W   L  Pts      NRR
Suriname           5   4   1    8     0.32
Panama             5   3   2    6     1.36
Belize             5   3   2    6     0.92
Turks & Caicos     5   3   2    6    -0.19
Bahamas            5   2   3    4    -0.56
Brazil             5   0   5    0    -2.58

Chapter 3:- EAP Division 2 (T20) Championship, World Twenty20 Qualifier

After Ghana in Africa then Costa Rica, Central America this time the tournament moved to Samoa in the Pacific Islands or Oceania. The country was formerly known as Western Samoa. This tournament marked the debut of 2 Asian teams of EAP region:- South Korea and Philippines. For South Korea it is a important step as they will be hosting the 2014 Asian Games which will feature Cricket in the T20 format. There were also reports on ICC website where South Koreans were seen practicing in snow for the tournament.
The second team which debuted were Philippines. A country with not a great sporting culture and being a member of ICC for over 4 years, this was a important milestone for the country where the game has been introduced by expats from Australia, India and Pakistan.

6 teams were taking part in the tournament. The 3 teams mentioned above debutant South Korea & Philippines, the hosts Samoa and three other teams Tonga, Cook Islands and Indonesia. Samoa, Cook Islands and Tonga were the favorites and much was expected from Indonesia who recently had been awarded best youth development program. Not much was expected from the debutant though.

When the tournament progressed it was to amaze many. Philippines performed very nicely coming second in pool and reaching the finals. The South Koreans also did decently having 1 victory in league and then coming 5th by defeating Indonesia in rank play-off's. The league standing were as follows


Teams          P   W   N   L   Pts      NRR
Samoa          5   5   0   0    10     3.63
Phillipines    5   4   0   1     8     0.11
Tonga          5   2   0   3     4     0.11
Cook Islands   5   2   0   3     4    -1.10
Indonesia      5   1   0   4     2    -1.99
South Korea    5   1   0   4     2    -2.85

Chapter 2:-Americas Division 3 (T20) Championship 2011, World Twenty20 Qualifier

After the ICC Africa Div 3 where 3 countries made their debut i.e. Cameroon, Seychelles, Mali then came Americas Div 2 where this time Falkland Islands were making their debut. It was a tournament where 6 teams were taking part :- Belize, Panama, Mexico, Chile, Debutants Falkland Islands and Hosts Costa Rica.

The format was simple, all teams were in one pool and the Top teams qualifies for Div 2. The favorites for the tournament were Belize. Many people had high hopes from Falkland Islands as they though they being a British colony would have cricket culture somewhat similar to Seychelles did in Africa Div 3.

The teams of Belize and Falkland Islands were former British colonies and inherited the cricket culture from there. Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and Peru teams were full of expats from South Asia or Aus/NZ or Eng and they were the one's that have introduced cricket there.

The points tally of the tournament went as follows

TEAM               P   W   L   Pts    NRR
Belize             5   5   0   10     3.32
Peru               5   4   1    8     1.79
Chile              5   3   2    6    -0.07
Mexico             5   2   3    4    -1.01
Costa Rica         5   1   4    2    -1.59
Falkland Islands   5   0   5    0    -4.36

The format for 2015 World Cup

Lately there has been so much haggling on what should be the format of 2015 CWC. Australia and New Zealand simply want a 10 nation tournament similar to the 1992 CWC. They are scared that they would be having empty stadiums for SA V Can type of matches which India, SL and BD were able to do.

Now to add to the issue there is another problem. ICC has a agreement with ESPN Star Sports where there have promised a min of 45 matches in the World Cup and major teams like India playing atleast 6 matches. Also as part of the deal all 10 Test Nations need to play. This simply can be fulfilled by only 10 test teams and that ensures min 6 matches. The format of 2011 CWC also ensures the same but the hosts Aus and NZ are dead against it.  If we keep only 10 test nations then the Associates are against it and in long term may even threaten to go into the courts and ICC is set to loose.

Also there is another constraint. If ICC somehow convince the ESPN and introduce a qualifier removing the 10 test nation clause, then the most likely nation to lose out would be BD. BD is such a huge and emerging market, a place where cricket is like religion like it is in Ind, Pak or SL.

So many constraints and how do we solve the issue. I thought of a Idea, where in all test nations play, we have 2 associates, then each team plays 9 matches, and there are no meaningless matches like 2011 CWC but every match be it against Ind or Aus or be it against Ken or Can are very very important. The idea of the format came from 2011 IPL. What is the format I would try to explain

THE FORMAT

The table is quite self explanatory. All the 12 teams would be in 1 pool itself. They would play 9 instead of the 11 league matches. This means we have 54 league matches and then top 4 teams reach the SF and finals.

This means if Aus is playing SA or Neth every match is important as practically of the top 6 or 8 teams are fighting for the 4 spots. A loss to SA or Neth can be equally disastrous. Also if you see the format, the higher ranked teams have more matches with the lower ranked teams, and the lower ranked teams have more matches with higher ranked teams. For Eg Ind ranked 2, will not play the 2 matches against Rank 1 Aus and Rank 4 SA & Ass-2 i.e Rank 12 Neth do not play 2 matches against  Rank 9 BD & Rank 11 Ire. Hence over years the various bilateral ODI series will have a purpose and bad performances in those would mean tough times in World Cup. This format also ensures that the minnows like BD or Ire cannot go into next round based on 1 upset, and also they will be playing more tougher teams.

Ranked higher and playing low ranked doesn't mean all are bad matches. Ind will be playing Eng, SL, Pak, WI, NZ besides BD, Ire, Neth & Zim. So 5 very tough matches and every loss means more difficult to end in top 4 and same will be case loosing to say Ire

I also checked the matches of various types that happened in 2011, proposed 2015 and my 2015
Absolute Dead Rubbers?
Absolute dead rubbers are matches that happen between minnows i.e none of the team is in Top 8 (Ind, Aus, SA, SL, Eng, Pak, WI & NZ)
2011:- 6 (Can V Ken, Ken V Zim, Zim V Can, Ire V BD, BD V Neth, Neth V Ire)
P2015:- 1 (BD V Zim)
M2015:- 3 (Ire V BD, Neth V BD, Neth V Zim)
Hence my 2015 absolutely reduces the dead rubber matches as compared to 2011 CWC

Interesting T8 Matches?
T8 matches are that happen between any of the top 8 teams
2011:- 12
P2015:-28
M2015:-21

Again the interesting matches that everybody waits for increase from 12 to 21 as compared to 2011 CWC

Dead Rubbers?
The dead rubbers are the matches of T8 v other teams, for Eg SA V Neth. These matches are more of a formality to be there, but these matches also give the excitement of shock victories of minnows like Eng V Ire. These shock victories are remembered over long times. We should have such matches but they should not be in a majority. Then they drag the things.
2011:- 24
P2015:-0
M2015:-0
Why 0 in latter 2 beacuse for P8 every match has a significance. In 2015 it was a fight to finish in Top 4 in a pool from 4 teams of T8 and 7 teams. There was not much of fight to reach the next round. Here the T8 teams have a fight to finish in top 4 out of 8 T8 teams under the assumption they all defeat the minnows. Any loss to the minnows would be disastrous. This will keep the interest in all matches

Total Matches?
2011:- 42+7=49 Matches
P2015:- 45+3=48 Matches
M2015:- 54+3=57 Matches

So what is the benefit?
As compared to 2015 format of 10 teams, 12 teams format

1. Has more not matches
2. Has more number of absolute dead rubbers
3. Less number of T8 matches

So What are the Advantages?

1.  It is a Real "World" Cup where any deserving country has a chance to participate and not a closed colonial 10 nation tournament
2. It has space of top 2 associate to qualify for the world cup
3. It also is in line with ICC contractual obligation i.e all 10 test nations, min 45 matches and each test team playing a guarantee of 6 matches
4. It gives a meaning to the ODI rankings and adds interest to various bilateral series played over the years as part of FTP

Also since we have World Cup in NZ and Aus, we can make very good use of the timings. The matches in NZ would be day matches and in Aus we should have D&N matches. This would mean when the match in NZ ends then only the match in Aus will start. The distribution can be done in a way that times of the matches are convenient to the TV audience.This arrangement would mean that we can finish the league matches in 40 days with another week for SF and Finals. This would not drag the world cup for too long. Also teams play 9 matches in 40 days, i.e a match in 4.5 days. So a 3 to 4 day rest between the matches.

I Have mailed this proposal to ICC. I hope over time they look into this format and keep it for their world cup