“We will see some really good quality cricket in 2015 World Cup”: James Sutherland

The Australian cricket Chief Executive, James Sutherland, believed that format of the recent ‘ICC World Cup 2011’ was not up to the mark. While in conversation with the media, he told that the ‘International Cricket Council’ (ICC)
has announced four minnow teams which will not be playing in the next 2015 World Cup hosted by Australia and New Zealand, naming: Ireland, Netherlands, Canada and Kenya.

The ICC has suggested a few Test-playing teams viz. India, Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, West Indies, New Zealand, Bangladesh, England and Zimbabwe. The ICC action has taken place due to the criticism for a long and lengthy competition
between the traditional powers and the weaker teams by the Australian Chief Executive.

Ireland had defeated Pakistan in ‘2007 World Cup’ and this time it was successful in defeating England. The Australian Chief Executive believes that this schedule of the ‘ICC World Cup’ was not satisfactory. He stated, “The Australian
team had two seven-day breaks at one stage and in that period, the only cricket they were playing was against minnow countries. I’m not making excuses, but it was difficult for the team to build any momentum into what proved to be a clutch match against Pakistan
immediately before the quarter-finals, the batsmen hadn’t faced full member attack for nigh on a month”.

The three times consecutive defendant champions, Australia, who was part of ‘Group A’, was dismissed from the tournament by India in quarter-final stage of ‘ICC World Cup 2011’. However, the 2015 competition would be an interesting
one if it would comprise of ten teams in number. In relation to this, the Australian Chief Executive said that, “The decision to go to a 10-teams competition is something we are very supportive of”.

Moreover he pronounced that, 14-teams competition does not work well and we have also tested a 16-teams competition in the past. He believes that 10-teams competition can lift a great interest among cricket lovers, where the team
can survive in the contest on losing one match only. As he states, “We believe 10 teams will be a really good format for the event, perhaps it might be a one round league where everyone plays each other once and then a semi-final and a final, the ICC needs
to make those decisions, but when you think about that as a format, every match has great context … and we will see some really good quality cricket in 2015 World Cup”.