I'm sure you understand how leagues/tiers work, and so how can you not understand how the whole point is to increase the strength by gradual integration. It will be 5-7 strong Test nations, some sides vary in strength and so 8 is an exaggeration of strength, and the rest are playing pointless series where they get thumped and learn nothing.
In the wings wait Ireland, Holland and others, not strong enough for Test cricket and at the moment the only way they will get into the elitist Test fold is to be elected and they will struggle like the more recent additions. The solution? To reduce the number of Test nations to the 5-7 strong ones, and have the weaker ones play the stronger non-Test nations in division 2. This means sides are playing at their level, allows for further sides to be added without overloading the Test schedule.
You can't kick Bangladesh out of Test cricket without a stink, but you could create two or more tiers and downgrade their tier to effectively non-Test status.
If international cricket was bigger across the world like football, i would agree. But cricket as i said, especially test cricket is still very much a an insular sport, which would take a new national a very long time to be good at it.
Except for sri lanka all the top 8 nations having been playing test cricket for more than 75 years & all of them (except for england & australia) took at least 15+ years to become solid test nations, and also for the citizens of the country even in this modern age of fast sports to still appreciate test cricket & go the ground every year to watch it.
So it not going to be a simple case of you relegating the weaker of the sides to play ireland's etc, since as much as windies (although i reckon they are improving), sri lanka, new zealand, pakistan, india now may be a below the level of south africa, england, australia - they still are miles ahead of bangladesh/zimbabwe & associates nations when it comes to a first class game/test match.
Really those associates plus bang/zim who i don't think should be playing test cricket, have to earn the right to play test through their performances in odi & t20 cricket.
Cricket is still living in the C19 in comparison to most sports, no point at all comparing it to football.
Why not? no bias exist in international football when it comes to fixtures. The major teams in world cup or continental tournament qualifiers don't look to play each other all the time or try to influence as such to fifa/confederation boards. Top teams if they have to play a weak/mid-level nations do so on balanced basis as given to them in the fixtures list.
Tradition over-riding progress, there is exactly why cricket will not progress. All countries have their own set agendas, England wanting to play the best sides more and the weak sides as little as possible, the various traditional series meaning you get longer series against some sides than others. It is that inflexibility, and the greed of boards, that has stopped the rest of the world warming to cricket.
How do you increase the popularity of a sport in a country? Increase the exposure, spread it globally, have the country in question involved in a major event. The ICC trophy for the minnows won't raise more than an eyebrow, but a side competing in World Cups and a tiered Test scenario would.
For reasons stated above, holding on to that traditional especially for the test is very understandable. Lets not forget the main reason also why the major teams get away with manipulating fixtures is because their is no strong icc board to dictate to fixtures to them - but instead they maneuver to suit themselves.
T20 is the game in the modern climate that will get new nations into cricket & i'm fairly confident that associates not playing test cricket currently isn't killing them.
I loved the 92 World Cup, my favourite of them all. BUT it excludes the minnows and that made it weaker. You can't just cut out the minnows, but then if you opened up to the idea of tiers then those sides would be a bit more than minnows.
All very well offering the rest of the world T20, "here you go chaps, here's some scraps off the table", but they will not improve without playing in a proper structure regularly. Ireland won't progress with the scraps offered them, they'd struggle as a Test nation, the only way forward for them and cricket is tiers, bring the rest of the world into the Test (and ODI) fold and watch them develop. A few years of knocking heads with Bangladesh, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Holland and Scotland and we'll see improvement I'm sure. Noone improves from getting beat all the time, relentlessly and heavily, nor do they improve if they play every so often.[/QUOTE]
Well thats the thing with test & odi cricket, these associates frankly are not improving fast enough. Barring the odd upset in the world cup, associates countries like zimbabwe, kenya, bangladesh have gone backwards. Which is why i'd say make future 50 overs world cups limited to just the top 9 nations (including bangladesh) & use the 92 world cup format.
I don't think its fair to call t20 cricket scraps. It may be the format of cricket in which it doesn't test the skills of cricket as well as a odi or test - but in a solid format in its own right as recent t20 world cups have shown. T20 however do look crappy when played in leagues like ipl & big bash league etc.
That is the format in which the associates in a world cup just like football can really cause upset given the shortness of the format. That will mean that the top 8 nations will have to know they can't afford to slip up in t20 if they play an associate nation.
This is why i'd advocate having as much as 16 teams in a t20 world-cup.
While instead of tiers for tests, i'd say big nations like australia, england, india, south africa should send their "A" teams on tour to zimbabwe, bangladesh, kenya, ireland, in uae to play afghanistan, scotland, holland.
If they challenge those "A" teams in first-class matches, along with showing clear signs of improvement in t20 & odi world cups, then we can promote them to test consideration.
