Minnows - what are they really achieving

I wonder why some of the minnows of cricket (this time Kenya, Canada, Ireland and Netherlands) are invited to play in world cup and get humiliated (in most of the matches)? Do these teams learn anything just by getting hammered & humiliated by few of the big fishes of cricket once in 4 years? Do these kind of performances provide any motivation / encouragement - 
- to these teams?
- or to any of the aspiring teams / nations (like Afghanistan, Scotland, USA)?
- or to any of the aspiring players of these teams? 


Don't you??

• If you would have played for one of these teams, would you have got the motivation to continue playing after getting thrashed in world cup matches? I won't have.
• Would you have aspired to play for these teams after seeing their performances in the world cup? I won't have. 

Having said that I would definitely love to represent my country in any form :-) - minnows or not!!


Talking about 2011 world cup - out of the total 49 matches to be played in this world cup, 22 matches will have no or very little significance as these 4 teams will be involved in those matches. So, if these teams won't have played, the end result of this world cup would be the same with 22 less matches to play - which would have a been a smaller & compact schedule!!


But you know what, ICC must have some reasons to believe that all these 22 matches are significant enough and so these teams should be allowed to play.  So, lets see how these teams have faired last 4 years in one day matches (i.e. from 28th April '07 i.e. end of last world cup till 19th Feb '11 i.e. start of this world cup).

• KENYA: 49 matches played against the teams Bermuda, Ireland, Canada, Zimbabwe, Netherlands & Afghanistan
• CANADA: 33 matches played against the teams Afghanistan, Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Netherlands, Scotland & West Indies (3 matches)
• IRELAND:  46 matches played against the teams Afghanistan, Australia (1 match), Bangladesh, Canada, England (1 match), India (1 match), Kenya, Netherlands, New Zealand (1 match), Scotland, South Africa (1 match), West Indies (2 matches) & Zimbabwe.
• NETHERLANDS: 31 matches played against the teams Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Scotland & West Indies (1 match)

With the above stats I feel hard to believe that these teams will perform well in this world cup and the 22 matches are significant enough - for the tournament, for the players, for the reporters and for us, the spectators & TV viewers!! And I feel hard to understand what exactly ICC is trying to do to improve the performances of these teams. And do you have any idea on how the minnows will start improving by playing among each other? And this is the only idea that ICC is implementing to improve & promote cricket in their world?


I feel one of the steps that ICC should take if they sincerely want these teams to be bigger & better and have 'some impact' on world cup - they should be make these to play against then 'big guns' of cricket more often in between world cups. 
ICC should make the these teams a part of the itineraries that are made for the big guns say by making the rule that at least one of minnows have to take part in any one day series / tournaments where more than 2 teams are playing. For example - there's a scheduled tri-series in Jan '12 in Australia between Australia, India and New Zealand - in this series ICC should also include one of the minnows say Netherlands. So, instead of tri-series it will be a quad-series and may be instead of each team playing each other 3 times can play 2 times!! 


So, little bit of twists in these tournaments, these teams can achieve a lot and this may take them to a long way to come out the shell called 'minnows'!! Just a thought... :-)


There can be 'n' number of more steps that ICC can and should take... but that can be a matter for one of my next blogs (not this one)!! :-) 


Well, let me know your views as well...