England v Scotland:

Just recently the second of a number of one off One Day Internationals between England and her Associate neighbours (The first being a 50 odd run win for the English against Ireland in 2006) was played in Edinburgh, with steady rainfall eventually putting paid to any hopes of a result with England 10 without loss chasing a revised target of 159 in 44 overs. It was just as well that the biggest individual effort in this match was the 60 runs scored by Scotland opener and England one test wonder Gavin Hamilton.

This match, would you believe it was the first ever match between England and Scotland, in the 50 over format of the game and despite that it was a sellout, like Scotland’s other ODI’s this summer was not televised on any of the UK’s major channels with the BBC’s TMS among the very few bringing the action into the homes of viewers ad listeners all over the UK.

Full member V Associates ODIs

Outside this also ongoing now is a tri-nation series featuring Bermuda, Canada and the West Indies in Canada and later in the year (if procrastination does not hold sway) a four nation T20 event. This together with Scots and the Irish getting to play Australia in a one off ODI’s when they tour England on their Ashes adventure and a 2 match away series for Kenya all point to an upsurge in matches between played between test nations and their less illustrious Associates.

With all the likelihood that the gulf in class between these test nations and their opponents producing desperately one sided contests, and with that a whole barrage of attacks on the use of staging these matches at all, it is important that before this wave of emotion against the associates for being associates distorts the argument lets us take a look at the history of ODIs of this nature.

Since the inception of 50 overs ODIs there have been several nations that have found themselves playing ODIs against Test class opposition before they themselves had test status. They are Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Kenya, U.A.E, Scotland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Canada, Namibia, Bermuda. While the overwhelming majority of these encounters have been at the preliminary stages of the various World Cups there have been a few instances where Test teams have invited or toured non-test teams to play ODIs with a few upsets along the way including Kenyan victories in India at Gwailor in 1998 and in South Africa in 2001 as well Irish victories over the West Indies and Zimbabwe when they toured England in 2004. While these victories are few and far between and indeed most of these matches often end up such one sided contests that often the very wisdom of exposing the associates to such opposition is questioned, One thing that is often left unanswered is if such a big gap exists between the 10 full members of the ICC and the next best teams what is genuinely being done about it?

Now, although as I have pointed out earlier in this article there has been a bit of an explosion of Full Member v. Associate ODIs of late but if this article, by Martin Williamson, on Cricinfo points to a less happy experience on the part of the Associate teams when it comes to organizing these matches. The article raises the point that Kenya, despite being former World Cup semifinalists have only managed one ODI series against the two full Member countries (a 2-2 draw against Zimbabwe in 2005) in Africa and Home and away series (against Bangladesh since 2003) with any other Full mambers of the ICC. A look at the other 5 Associates with ODI status paints an even grimmer picture. The Netherlands despite being a short hop from the home of cricket have only managed the one ODI against Sri Lanka, whereas Bermuda and Canada only just played their first ODIs against Full members of the ICC since they attained all attained ODI status in 2005. With that kind of limited exposure is it not a surprise that these teams do not seem able to keep up leave alone catch up with their Full member compatriots? Consider if each Full member were to spare only two matches per calendar year to host of tour these teams there would be 20 matches to share out every year. Over a 4 year World Cup cycle thats 80 matches between 6 teams.

ODIs aside it could be argued that a far more constructive means for these Associates to use First Class cricket as a vehicle to close that yawning gap that gets exposed during these few and far between ODIs and to that effect the ICC has created the Intercontinental Cup, which for all the good it has done so far is only as good as the players its participants field. Other than that these teams could play FC matches against representative teams from Full members ala Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh before they got test status. Here only Kenya, seems to benefit while teams like the Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland seem to disappear from the radar when the English harass their own counties to put out second XIs as practice for whoever happens to be touring.

Participating in a full member’s Domestic First Class circuit could be another way, but again what are the odds either Ireland or Scotland will get anything more that the FP Trophy leave alone the Dutch? In fact the only two Associates who have paricipated in a First Class Domestic competition are Kenya (who played once in the West Indies and once in Zimbabwe) and Namibia (who regularly play in South Africa’s Provincial competitions) and it is no surprise that at this point they sit on top of theIntercontinental Cup table.

With World Cup qualifiers less than a year, away and with that the identities of the 6 Associates who will be allowed to play fully accredited ODIs as well as the 4 who qualify for the World Cup itself to be decided, perhaps the ICC should consider these gaps as it prepares whoever happens to qualify for their showpiece event in the Sub-Continent in 2011.

Andruid is administrator of the Forum: From Beyond the Test World on “Silly Points”

ODIsICCICC AssociatesICC+AffiliatesAndruid

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