Zimbabwe tour cancelled - an opportunity for the associates?
Zimbabwe’s tour of England next year has been cancelled due to the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. The ECB are looking for a replacement for the tour, which per their TV contract with Sky Sports, needs to consist of two Test matches and three ODIs.
But who do they invite? Let’s look at the eight other full members. We can probably rule out this year’s tourists New Zealand and South Africa. India and Sri Lanka are an obvious no no, as they’re playing a tri-series with the South Africans in Sri Lanka at the same time.
The West Indies will have just played a home series against England and toured Bangladesh, so that rules them out, and with Bangladesh due to tour England in 2010, it’s unlikely they’d tour two years on the trot.
That leaves New Zealand and Pakistan. New Zealand play host to India shortly before the tour, but Pakistan are free, and the finincial benefits of Pakistan touring due to the Pakistani community in England are obvious.
But do the ECB have to invite a full member? It already seems that a third associate will be invited to replace Zimbabwe if they are pulled out of the World Twenty20, so why not take this chance to do something for the good of the game and invite an associate to tour? The ICC could give the associate chosen temporary Test status for the two Tests.
Two teams could come - the winner of the Intercontinental Cup for the Test matches, and the winner of the World Cup Qualifiers in April for the ODIs. Or even a composite associate/affiliate team for the full tour. What do you think?
Posted: June 26th, 2008 by Andrew Nixon.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from ray
Time: June 26, 2008, 11:57 am
That sounds interesting: the Intercontinental cup winner playing an unofficial Test against England. However, the ECB will want to make as much money as possible from the tour. That might rule out handing an opportunity to an Associate member.
Comment from Ian MacQuillin
Time: June 26, 2008, 1:57 pm
I reckon they’ll go for Australia, as this would give them the chance to make a lot of money out of playing Australia in three ODIs shortly before Australia arrive to play their scheduled series of 5 tests and 7 ODIs later in the year.
This would also give ECB the chance to play a series of 10 T20 Internationals against the Aussies in the gap between the stop-gap series against the Aussies ending and the start of scheduled series against the Aussies. This would really whet our appetites for the real Ashes contest to come.
What ECB should do is stage a Home international triangular tournament with Ireland and Scotland (if the counties release their Irish and Scots players), though everyone should play each other twice, just in case we have “one bad day” against either of them and don’t make it into the final.
Comment from fromefrog
Time: June 27, 2008, 3:39 pm
i actually thought about this some time ago as i think its been obvious that this tour was never going to happen. the ECB should invite a “Combined Associate Nation” team to tour. the dates work out quite well. the WCQ in UAE is in April so the players selected would have had match practise before the tour starts in May. i’m sure an Ass.Nat. XI would be at least as competitive as Zimbabwe would have been, maybe even more so . an Ass.Nat. XI could include Porterfield, Tikolo & Ten Doeschade(i apoligise if i,ve spelt that wrong) & would be a benefit to associate cricket.
however i fancy will proberly extend the Ashes but i live in hope.
Comment from Tom Mather
Time: June 27, 2008, 7:59 pm
I don’t think they will invite any associate teams because there wouldn’t be enough money in it for England. Also top associate players over here might have problems with their counties releasing them. A combined team would be stronger but the matches would be more meaningless.
The top associates are strong enough for a 3 match ODI series against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but not really against the other full members. It’s a bit depressing, but that’s how I see it. It would be good if England could play an extra ODI against Ireland or Scotland, maybe both, but they would still feel they had to invite someone else over as well.
It doesn’t help that Scotland and Ireland do so poorly in the domestic one day competition. Sure they have top players missing, but that’s the point. If Ireland could contract its top players through the cricket season, they could play in the English domestic competitions, including the County Championship, without expecting funding from the ECB of course. This means that more players would have to go professional. Intercontinental Cup obligations would make it difficult but Namibia played 1 and 3 day matches in SA and are the better for it. Of course England would have to agree to it!
Comment from amit
Time: June 28, 2008, 6:13 am
it will be a good idea to have the winner of the intercontinental cup have a temporary test status & play the 2 test matches against england, which will also have official test status. also as they have the temporary test status, they should also get the 3 odis against england. it will already be quite an effort from the associate team which wins the intercontinental cup as all 8 associates have played against each other once in this tournament.
i dont like this idea of a combined team. it has been flop anyway as we saw in the icc super-series when the team despite having lots of international stars flopped. the combined associate team wont be too much of a success & it will be better if the winners of the intercontinental cup are selected for the 2 test & 3 odi tour
Comment from fromefrog
Time: June 28, 2008, 4:19 pm
amit.yes the super series was a flop,but it was a concept nobody really wanted bolted on to an already overcrowded fixture list. the CAN XI would be replacing Zimbabwe & unlike the superseries the players would have everything to prove.
i feel its the natural progression for the IC cup champion to play the bottom ranked Test Nation(currently Bangladesh) each year however i very much doubt i’ll see an England vs Ireland Test series any time soon.
Comment from Chris
Time: July 2, 2008, 12:11 am
The intercontinental cup winners playing tests? Against England? Surely that’s not going to be seriously considered by the ECB. If Namibia or Ireland can win a 4-day competition then that is fantastic for their general development, but what would be the point in rushing them to play a scheduled 5 day match (or worse, two scheduled 5-day matches) against England? Just so their confidence can be dented when they most likely lose? As it stands, the Namibians don’t play 3-day domestic matches as far as I know and I’m almost certain the Irish don’t, so the only multi-day experience will come from being in South Africa’s domestic competition (which is probably why Namibia are blazing ahead in the IC) or in the intercontinental cup itself. Maybe if the Namibians, Kenyans or Irish covincingly beat Bangladesh in a 4-day match, then an unofficial test with England might make sense, but until their 4-day competence can be gauged against the likes of Bangladesh A, Bangladesh and probably England A then there is no way the ECB would give thought to multi-day matches between the full England squad and any associate. They would probably prefer to schedule Twenty20s since those would cost less to put on (and you can put on more of them in the same time slot for a Test) and they would probably generate more money as I can’t imagine many England fans willingly paying money for an unofficial test that England stands an overwhelming chance of winning.
A lot of this speculation is still premature I think. The UK has banned Zimbabwe from the bilateral tour, but given Mugabe’s age (84) I wouldn’t be so certain that any ban will still be in effect by 2009, because a year is a long time and by 2009 Mugabe could be dead and a new government could be in power in Zimbabwe which may well be welcomed by the international community. Of course by 2009 Mugabe could still be around, but on the balance of probabilities he doesn’t have much time left as an active leader (maybe 5 years at best and if he was alive afterwards he would probably become so senile that he would become a figure-head for his cronies who wish to perpetuate the situation he created to their benefit).
Comment from Tom Mather
Time: July 3, 2008, 7:12 am
Just read in the Daily Telegraph that Sri Lanka have agreed to tour England next year in place of Zimbabwe.
Comment from dr gulkhan
Time: July 4, 2008, 7:24 am
zimbabwe wil not participate in the t-20 cup; meaning on more spot for associate sides.
Comment from fromefrog
Time: July 4, 2008, 3:33 pm
just read on Cricinfo that Zimbabwe have withdrawn from T20WC
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