Never have India, England, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka staged a men’s ODI or T20I World Cup qualifying match.
Telford Vice / Cape Town
WHICH country has hosted the most men’s World Cup qualifying matches? It was formed as a monarchy in the 15th century, is about the same size as Haiti and Albania, and French is one of its four official languages.
Rwanda. Who’d have thunk it. Ninety-nine qualifying games have been played in the east African republic, all of them from October 2021 to December 2022.
Next up, the more easily guessable United Arab Emirates, which has hosted 81 such matches among its 647 men’s internationals: 37 Tests, 377 ODIs and 233 T20Is. Only 77 of them — not quite 12% — have involved the home side.
Then it’s back to unfamiliar territory. The third country on the list shares a border with Russia and has more heavy metal bands, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. That’s right: Finland, where 48 qualifiers have unspooled in front of spectators perhaps puzzled by the players’ lack of ice-hockey sticks.
But none of the above places will take charge of the tournament to decide the last two teams for this year’s ODI World Cup. Even so, the country that will has a solid track record in putting on this kind of show. Forty-three qualifiers involving 14 teams were played in March 2018 and July 2022 in Zimbabwe, where 10 sides will compete from June 18 to July 9 to complete the World Cup field.
Thirteen other countries and regions, including West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand, have hosted qualifiers. Never have the likes of India, England, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka staged a single men’s ODI or T20I World Cup qualifying match.
You could ascribe that to the heavyweights of the game not having to bother with this stuff, what with all the other high-level cricket to which they already have direct and first-hand access. But there’s value in spreading the love, not least because hosts earn money from ticket, hospitality and food and beverage sales at match venues and are paid a fee by the ICC; an amount an ICC spokesperson said “we don’t disclose”.
It’s a safe bet that figure, whatever it is, represents crumbs from a table that could soon groan even more heavily at one end. If a new revenue model is approved at the ICC board meeting in Durban in July the dozen full members would reportedly hog 88.81% of the game’s earnings from 2024 to 2027. That would mean 88.68% of the ICC’s membership — the 94 associates — are left with 11.19% of the money.
The logic is that full members earn all of cricket’s revenue and that associates spend more money than they make. The first half of that assertion is particularly true of India, cricket’s unparalleled and apparently infallible money machine, who would keep 38.5% of cricket’s earnings — the biggest single chunk — in terms of the new deal.
None of which will be uppermost on the field in Zimbabwe during the coming weeks. The favourites to emerge from the pack and join Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa in India in October and November will be West Indies and Sri Lanka, both former World Cup champions. Ireland, who came close to qualifying directly, and the Netherlands won’t be far behind. The Zimbabweans will be determined to bounce back after missing the tournament for the first time in their history in 2019.
This is what international cricket is when it does not feature India, or to a lesser extent England or Australia. Or Pakistan and Bangladesh, who exist in vibrant sub-cultures all of their own. The closest the rest of the game gets to that level of hype and intense focus is when it is chopped up and reconstituted in bite-sized chunks as foreign players in the IPL.
That’s how much of the non-Indian cricket world consumes the IPL — not as a competition in its own right and with its own narrative, but as an outrageously dazzling showcase that sometimes features their compatriots. Who won? Who knows or cares. It’s more important, for millions, that Faf du Plessis, Devon Conway and David Warner did well.
Players from countries like Rwanda, the UAE and Finland have little hope of enjoying that kind of limelight. Not because they’re without question not good enough but because, even if they are, their talents are unlikely to be noticed in places like Kigali, Abu Dhabi or Helsinki. And because, even if they are spotted, they face an exponentially longer and more complicated path to prominence than those from cricket’s more recognised countries.
So spare a thought for teams like Nepal, Oman and the USA. The World Cup qualifiers are the closest they’re going to get to the global stage. The spotlight will shine on them and their peers alone in Zimbabwe next month.
Cricbuzz