The minnows of cricket

By Rajadhyax

Countries like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are often called as minnows of world cricket. The term is trifle derogatory no matter how innocently you use it. Some use it to simply mean ‘newcomers’ but in some people’s book it means teams that are too incompetent to deserve international reckoning. So there are also a large number of people who consider the term right for such teams, considering their up-and-down performances as well as novice-like mistakes in crucial matches. Lot of commentators come down heavily on their inability to learn from past mistakes too. There is even a harsh opinion that their Test Status must be withdrawn.

It’s high time that the ICC and other interest groups in the game should review both sides of the arguments realistically. In such considerations, justice must be done to the countries and at the same time thought must percolate about the future of the game and its credibility on the global canvas. The question is how to ensure that cricketers in such places are not victimised and the stature of international cricket is also preserved. There are very clearly two sides to this coin.

On one hand, you can argue in favour of these countries stating that they do have individual talent. Coventry’s recent century for Zimbabwe Tamim Iqbal’s knocks for Bangladesh are recent indications. These teams have great local support for the game to go with national tournaments, coaches, infrastructure and the works. In spite of political and economic problems back home, they are managing decent performances as individuals and they could click any time now as a team. Their performances against one another are competitive and it’s only a matter of time that they will upset the bigger teams more regularly along the way. But we must give them time to mature for them to go through the same learning curve like Sri Lanka did after their Test Status.

In opposition you may argue that their recent performances against teams that matter are dismal. A sudden one-off victory against Australia or beating a second-string West Indies does not make Bangladesh a promising team. The consistency of the so-called minnows is very close to pathetic. One or two genuinely talented players do not maketh a team. Besides, the margin with which they lose against the top six teams and the way in which they fold up is appalling.

Deleting them from international status, however, cuts these teams from good exposure, experience and funding at all levels of the game. They also get eliminated from competitive standards the experience of playing at different venues in the world. Besides, their level of cricket is clearly higher than the associate member countries – Bangladesh for instance can beat Canada or Afghanistan any day. So playing them would not improve the standards of the ‘minnows’. And the only chance for them to do so is by playing the Test playing nations over and over again.

If you ask me, removing them from their Test Status is unreasonably harsh and also not in the interest of the game in such countries. In the first place ICC has done enough research and taken enough experts’ opinion to grant them the status. So it’s not logical to suddenly remove it. In fact it would be a knee jerk reaction or more like chopping the head because there was a headache. We need to be more inclusive and learn to accept that some may be weaker teams at the moment than the six big ones. We (meaning all test playing nations, ICC and the national associations in ‘minnow’ nations) must take the effort to bring the standards in these countries higher.

ICC may even think of putting them on a sort of Red Alert. If they don’t improve in specific aspects of the game and in pre-set time, action may be taken. So there will be enough pressure on the local associations, clubs and players to come up with unified action plans for development of the game and its needed infrastructure.

It needs to be understood that these countries are playing against quite strong odds. Zimbabwe, for instance, is crippled by an economic downturn and the controversial Robert Mugabe regime. So the players are fighting the political interference, colour politics and refusal of big teams to play against them in addition to general apathy to play even at this level. Bangladesh is also among the least developed countries of the world, in addition to being politically unstable. Players there sometimes trek their way across miles of hills to play local-level matches. Infrastructure is abysmal at that level and green outfields are a luxury only the Test players can enjoy. In appreciation of the love of the game there, over and above the other reasons, we need to give them chances to become serious contenders.

It may sound unbelievable but over 100 countries officially play cricket. Admitting more to the Test Status, naturally after detailed screening, will expand the field and intensify competition. Here ICC needs to tear a leaf out of the FIFA book. So forget about deleting minnows from international cricket, a more positive outlook says we must increase the number of competing teams by helping them to improve their quality standards. That is the obvious way forward.