2015 World Cup Qualifier: Preview Group A

This World Cup qualifier would probably be one of the most interesting and critical for the game of cricket. On one side we have traditional teams like Netherlands, Scotland, Canada and Kenya fighting hard for their spots, a resurgent UAE and Namibia fighting to claim back their glory days and upcoming and emerging nations of Nepal and PNG dedicated and fighting to replace these nations. This will without doubt be a very hard fought tournament with deciding the 2 finalist is a very difficult task. It will not be unlikely that experts can pick two teams and in the end those teams end up in bottom 5.

The fight for the 2 spots will be a tough one. Picking 2 teams is very difficult

In the World Cup Qualifier the teams are divided into 2 groups of 5 teams each. From these groups 3 teams will go into Super Six. In Super Six the 3 teams from each group will carry the points of matches against the 2 teams from the group. Finally from Super Six the top 2 teams will go into finals and reach the World Cup.

GROUP A
Teams:- Canada, Hong Kong, Nepal, Scotland & United Arab Emirates

ICC Seeding
1. UAE
2. Scotland
3. Canada
4. Hong Kong
5. Nepal

PREVIEWS
1. UAE
UAE have been very impressive lately especially in the 2011-13 ICC WORLD CRICKET LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP. They just missed out on qualification and came third in the tournament. They also proved themselves again when they qualified for the 2014 World Twenty20. Their batting is top class along with their deadly spinners.
 

Shaiman Anwar will be the key player UAE will be relying upon

However in NZ they would have to overcome many challenges to keep up the performances.The are an aging team and the fast bowlers are not fast enough. This could be their Achilles heal.

Key Player:- Shaiman Anwar

Expected Verdict:- Should make it into the Super Sixes

2. Scotland
They are the hot favorites for the tournament. They would be most equipped to deal with the situation as the conditions in NZ are almost similar to conditions in Scotland. They have a solid batting line up lead by players like Calum MacLeod, Kyle Coetzer. The pace battery is equally impressive with a young line up consisting of Safyaan Sharif, Gourdon Goudie.

No team can ignore Calum MacLeod who is in super form

Key Player:- Calum MacLeod

Expected Verdict:- Winner or Runners Up

3. Canada
Canada are a team which have seen a great downfall. They finished a poor 12th out of 16 teams in World T20 Qualifer. On top of that they had a major loss when their ace captain Ashish Bagai announced his retirement after being troubled by politics going on in Cricket Canada. However even with the reduced line up they are not a team to be ignored. They are known to make a comeback in critical tournament when it is a matter of life or death for them. They still have some good batsman like Gunasekera, Nitish Kumar who can single-handily destroy any bowling lineup on their day. They also have some decent bowlers like Harvir Baidwan. However overall Canada would have to put a super effort and brilliantly lead to make a come back

Gunasekara:- He has a good technique and destroy any lineup on any day

Key Player:- Ruvindu Gunasekera

Expected Verdict:- Not expected to make it to Super Sixes

4. Hong Kong
They have been a surprise package for many especially when they made it into 2014 World Twenty20, but few people know that they are a young team and unlike the names suggest it is a team that has been built from junior levels. They have some technically some very good players in both bowling and batting. The team is a good mixture of youth and experience. 

Irfan Ahmed:- He is both deadly with bat and bowl and is a one man army

Despite all the goodies the team is yet to prove itself in ODI and that too in conditions of NZ. The absence of expierenced player Munir Dar will also hurt them a lot. It will be challenging for the team

 Key Player:- Irfan Ahmed

Expected Verdict:-  Not expected to make it to Super Sixes

5. Nepal
They are a resurgent team filled with the belief that they should be playing with better of the teams. They surprised many with their performance in World T20 Qualifier where they came third. Lead by a tactical coach and cool captain the team is hoping to make history. Paras Khadka is the traditional batting powerhouse of the team but players like Sharad Vekaswar have shown their worth in World T20 Qualifier. Basant Regmi is a brilliant all rounder who has impressed many and the conditions in NZ surely support his spin style. They have a young pace lineup consisting of Avinash Karn and Sompal Kami who can be a real surprise package
Having said all that the batting still suffers against quality fast bowling and to prove themselves they will have to overcome this weakness. The pace department has also been traditionally below par and this time even though they have potential but it is a young and inexperienced lineup.  

Paras Khadka: He is Mr Dependable for the team who can contribute both with Bat and Bowl

 Key Player:- Paras Khadka

Expected Verdict:- Though most critics have rated them lowly but I will give them a chance to make into Super Sixes. Whether they will make into Finals will depend upon two game for them- against Scotland and Netherlands

So overall this will be a keenly contested group and the predictions made now can be easily thrown out of window. That is the level of competition. It will be an interesting tournament and really looking forward to it.  

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.