Tony Becca
ONE HUNDRED and 29 years after the first Test match was played, there are still only 10 Test-playing teams in the world.
Based on an announcement by the International Cricket Conference last year; however, it may not be long before the number is increased.
According to the ICC, the reason for the limited number of teams at the top of the game is the difference in the strengths of the teams. In recent years, however, the game's governing body has been focusing on the development of the weaker teams, and starting this year, in one-day cricket for a start, it has set up a system that will provide them, the associates, with the opportunity to regularly test their skill against full members - against the Test-playing teams.
SCHEDULE OF MATCHES
According to the plan, the top six associates - Kenya, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda and the Netherlands - will all have ODI status whenever they play each other or a full member, and in order to ensure that the associates will play full members, the ICC is working towards creating a schedule of matches between full members and the six associates within the six-year international schedule that is being considered.
Although more matches will be played between the lower ranked full members and the six associates at the start, the plan will make it easier to properly compare and rank the leading Associates against the Full members, and as Matthew Kennedy, the ICC's Global Development Officer, has said, it will more seriously build the global profile of the sport.
The idea behind the plan is to improve the standard of the associates, to see how they compare, on a regular basis, with the full members, and although it will take some time for any of the six top associate members to qualify for Test status, it is a move in the right direction and one which should be applauded by cricket lovers around the world.
TREMENDOUS SUCCESS
Started in 1997, the ICC Development Programme, which is geared towards the development of the game around the world and which has provided players and coaches, umpires and administrators with opportunities, at home and abroad, to develop their skills, has obviously been a tremendous success and hopefully it will continue to be so - to the point where the pool of Test-playing teams will get larger.
The world of Test cricket has been limited to too few for too long. With cricket being a game in which the strong could, for example, bat for ever against the weak, make a mockery of a so-called contest and bore the fans to death. While the reason for that is understandable, it is good that the ICC has been spending some money in its bid to change that and is now making a move which could lead to a change.
Those who have marvelled at its failure to spread its wings should be happy that cricket is on the move, and the question now is how long it will take for an associate member, for one of Kenya, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda and the Netherlands, to join the elites of the game.
