International cricket, and in particular Test cricket, is a remarkable and, at times, unfathomable anomaly in modern sport.

Despite the International Cricket Council (ICC) regularly waxing lyrical about its desire to spread the game around the world, it is a sport which remains depressingly insular and inward-looking.

The decision by the ICC last week to scrap a two-tiered system for Test cricket and grant four associate members Test status, despite widespread approval from a majority of players and the national boards of six out of ten Test nations, did not come as a surprise to most cricket supporters. Indeed, it is simply a continuation of ICC policy reversals which limit the spread of the game.

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The 2015 World Cup, for all its successes, left a bitter taste in the mouth. Despite Afghanistan threatening to upset Sri Lanka and Ireland defeating two Test nations (the West Indies and Zimbabwe), the ICC announced the next World Cup would be reduced from 14 to ten nations.

Only in cricket could a governing body respond to the success of up and coming nations by announcing future restrictions on their participation in the event. Such a backward-looking announcement, made during the middle of the tournament no less, not only beggars belief but damages the future growth of the sport.

As William Porterfield, the Irish captain during the 2015 World Cup campaign, said, “If they [the ICC] cut the teams in world competitions, why not just have ten teams playing cricket and every other country in the world doesn’t bother?”

The treatment of Ireland by the ICC has been particularly inexplicable. The country has won the Intercontinental Cup, a first-class competition established to prepare associate nations for Test cricket, on four of the six occasions the tournament has been held and has lost only two of 32 matches in the competition’s history.

In one-day cricket, Ireland has beaten England, Pakistan (as well as tying with them another time), the West Indies, Bangladesh twice and Zimbabwe three times (as well as another tie). They also have a well-established domestic system, a small but growing player base across both genders and, perhaps most importantly in an era where T20 increasingly dominates the decisions of national boards, a genuine desire to play Test cricket. Ireland Cricket’s strategic plan places Test cricket membership at the centre of all future planning for the sport.

The response from the ICC has been unsurprisingly obtuse. Under the guise of preserving the sanctity of Test cricket, they initially ignored Irish calls for Test status. When continued Irish victories against Test nations meant these calls could no longer be ignored, a four-match first-class series between the lowest-ranked Test nation and the winner of the ongoing Intercontinental Cup was announced for 2018. If the winner of the Intercontinental Cup defeats the Test nation it will be granted Test status.



No other Test nation has ever had to meet such criteria. Indeed, the previous three nations to be granted Test status (Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh) only defeated one Test nation (in ODIs) to qualify for Test membership. The most recent nation to achieve Test status, Bangladesh, was granted this status in 2000 despite being considerably weaker than the Kenyan cricket side at the time. Bangladesh’s own director of coaching at the time, Gordon Greenidge, said Bangladesh’s application for Test status was “ridiculous”.

Few would now argue that Bangladesh, despite struggling in its first decade as a Test nation, does not deserve respect on the cricket field.

The argument that the expansion of Test cricket would ruin the sanctity of the game is weak. As a Test nation, Ireland would not be expected to play the big nations on a regular basis in protracted one-sided series. Neither Bangladesh nor Zimbabwe do this as it stands. Instead, Ireland would, for the most part, play the weaker Test nations in two or three-match Test series with a few ODIs and T20Is thrown into the mix.

This would serve to expand the game and create more competitive and compelling matches between the lesser Test nations. In the future, other talented associate members such as Afghanistan, Scotland and the Netherlands could be motivated by the rise of Ireland and seek out a similar path.

The ICC has long been reluctant to expand Test cricket under misguided conceptions that it will destroy the sanctity of the game. Even if this was a legitimate reason for their decisions, it does not explain the decision to reduce the number of participants for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

In 2007, there were sixteen nations competing. In 2011 and 2015, there were fourteen. In 2019, there will be ten. Such a desire to stop associate nations participating in world events is regressive and seems a deliberate attempt to stop the future expansion of the game across all formats. If Test matches are indeed the pinnacle of international cricket, the ICC seems determined to ensure that no additional nations reach that level in the future.

Cricket will not be the winner of this policy in the long-run.