Tuesday December 7, 2010

One consequence of the ICC’s decision to base the final two places in the next Intercontinental Cup competition on the World Cricket League Division 2 tournament in Dubai in April is that the participants will not be known until the eve of the new Northern Hemisphere season.

And for four of the six countries who are already included, that threatens to be a planning nightmare.

Having observed the ICC High Performance Manager, Richard Done, in the past as he battled to fit together the jigsaw that is the Associates’ fixture list, I hesitate to imagine what it will be like if he has to do so with two of the pieces of unknown size and shape.

There have been grumbles at times about the late finalisation of the fixtures, and the delay in firming up the 2011-12 competition seems likely to produce more headaches for hard-pressed administrators in some at least of the Northern Hemisphere countries. They have to fit their international fixtures into a busy domestic programme, and in the case of Scotland and the Netherlands, have to juggle their twelve Clydesdale Bank 40 League matches as well.

Dutch clubs, at least, are already unhappy about the way, as they see it, domestic cricket is subordinated to the needs of the national side, and a situation in which the Intercontinental Cup games and related ODIs were still unknown as late as April would simply be unacceptable. And rightly so.

Yet it’s hard to see how that could be avoided. The contenders in Dubai will include Bermuda, and possibly one or both of Denmark and Italy, who could qualify for the Division 2 tournament by finishing in the top two of the Division 3 tournament in Hong Kong and Guangzhou next month. So it’s possible – though perhaps unlikely – that one or even both of the remaining teams in the Intercontinental Cup could be from countries whose cricket is played between May and September.

Just think for a moment what that would do to the fixture list. In the normal course of events, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland would play two or three matches at home in 2011, away in the winter of 2011-12, and at home in 2012. The Dutch, for example, are due to entertain Ireland and Kenya in the next cycle, and to visit Sharjah (Afghanistan’s home ground), Canada and Scotland, while Scotland will be at home to Kenya and the Netherlands and away to Afghanistan, Canada and Ireland.

But the shape of their programmes would vary enormously, depending on whether their other opponents were, say, Bermuda and Italy, or Namibia and Papua New Guinea. And the first case, or even a partial version of it, would have a potentially disruptive effect on any planning for next summer.

No doubt Richard Done is already acutely aware of these problems, and will already be grappling with possible solutions. There might be just sufficient scope for him to build a 2011 schedule for Europe and North America which would hold good regardless of the outcome in Dubai in April, especially since the form book suggests that surely at least one of Namibia and the UAE will make it through.

Let’s hope so, for the existing High Performance countries cannot afford to wait.