In the climate of anger and frustration which has been created by the proposal of the ICC’s Full Members to cut back the number of qualifiers for the 2011 World Cup, it’s hardly surprising that there should have been a few calls for some kind of action on the part of the largely-powerless Associate nations.

There isn’t much that can be done, but one suggestion was for a boycott of this year’s ICC Development Awards.

A nice thought, but flawed on at least a couple of grounds.

First, while I’m not opposed to boycotts in principle – I happen to think, for example, that there’s a strong case for isolating Cricket Zimbabwe as long as the current crowd, with their links to Robert Mugabe, are in charge – it seems to me that the Associates should be seizing every opportunity at the moment for dialogue with the Full Members and the ICC administrators, pressing their case for decent treatment.

But there is, unfortunately, an even stronger reason why the idea of boycotting the Development Awards is a non-starter.

And that is that it is, quite literally, a non-event.

At some point today, the ICC will issue a press release, announcing the winners in the eight categories, from Best Overall Cricket Development Program to Photo of the Year. And that will be it.

Given the logistics and economics of world cricket, you can hardly blame the ICC for not organising an Oscars-type ceremony for what are, in all honesty, some pretty low-key awards. It would be a nonsense to bring together nominees from the four corners of the world for such an event.

Once the awards have been announced, regional events over the next few months – tournaments and the like – will be used to give the winners their place in the sun. And that’s as it should be.

But it the present soured atmosphere, created by the determined self-interest of the Full Members, it’s scarcely surprising if the contrast should be noted between the prizes which are doled out to the winners of the Development Awards (a $US2,000 equipment grant each for their national associations) and the $US175,000 each which goes to the sides leading the Test and ODI rankings on 1 April each year.

With the runners-up taking $75,000, the total prize-money for those two categories is $500,000, while the winners of the Development Awards get equipment to a total value of … $16,000.

And that’s not counting the other ICC Awards, such as the individual Player of the Year categories and so on.

Of course it’s true that the stars of the world game, the players whose efforts on the field give cricket its global image and who are the icons of the sport, deserve recognition and reward, and no-one should begrudge them the glory of that awards ceremony.

And of course it’s a positive sign that in 2007 the ICC introduced a category for Associate Player of the Year.

But even so, one cannot help reflecting on the message conveyed by that almost unbelievably vast discrepancy between the treatment the Full Members accord themselves and the scraps they throw to the Associates and Affiliates.

With the bitter taste of the impending decision about the 2011 World Cup in our mouths, it all seems like an uncanny echo of Mark 4:25: ‘For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.’

As long as world cricket remains under its current regime, it seems, global development will be more a matter of window-dressing than of true commitment, and the Full Members will continue to operate a closed shop, exploiting the sport for their own ends.

No-one doubts the personal commitment of those within the ICC whose task it is to further the development programme – it’s just a pity that their masters are not prepared to live up to the glossy promises they have made.