Winter Rant

Watching India, Australia, New Zealand and England win cricket tournaments over, and over again… is tiring. Although in all fairness, India can do a little more winning in the finals of ICC events.

What I would love to see as a cricket fan is the equivalent of the Asia Cup (for cricket) take root in other contents in the world where cricket is not necessarily a cultural and commercial success.

Each of the continents I called out in the title: Africa, Americas, Europe already have *some* cricket playing countries that have national teams making appearances in Cricket World Cups, year over year.

I think ICC would do well to encourage those cricket boards (think, Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, England, Kenya, Windies, USA, Canada) financially to set up such tournaments.

The good news is that each of those continents already has a test playing team: West Indies, South Africa, and England. Those cricket boards can take the lead and with ICC’s backing set up commercially successful tournaments that bring cricket to a wider audience than ever before.

But more importantly: it would just be so much fun to follow cricket playing nations that are hungry. The 2022 T20 World Cup has been an excellent demonstration of how good these so-called “minow” teams really are. Spoiler: they are really really good.

Each of these lesser known teams have solid foundations with incredible talent to beat the more established national cricket teams of this world.

Ultimately, I would love to see about 40 different teams take part in a Cricket World Cup. I think it would invite a degree of diversity in the game that is otherwise sorely lacking.

— vijay,

#microblogging on Medium, and waiting for rains to abate in Australia