While a lot of sports like Tennis, Rugby, Football, and Hockey have gone global and expanded in different smaller nations, cricket is still lacking to go global and expand its reach in the lesser known countries. Currently, cricket is played among only 12 full member countries - India, England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, West Indies, & Ireland.
However, a whopping 108 nations play cricket, but unfortunately, barring the 12 full member nations, the rest have had barely little scope to break through. For starters, the ODI World Cup 2023 event was played between only 10 countries in India. The last World Cup which featured the most teams (16) was the 2007 edition. The T20 format paints a different picture as in the T20 World Cup 2024 edition, 20 teams participated, making it one of the biggest for cricket in all global events.
ICC has said it several times and is making a conscious effort to make T20 cricket global in smaller European countries and African countries. However, that is still not helping the cause, as teams like Germany Italy, and Austria are failing to even play one World Cup.
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Rigid format not helping lower-ranked teams to rise
For the unversed, in each ICC World Cup, the top seven teams are automatically selected to play the global event based on the ICC Rankings for teams. The rest of the other teams have to play a qualifying round to get selected for the main event. Thus, top teams like India, South Africa, Australia, and England never play in the qualifying round.
For next year's T20 World Cup in 2026, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, South Africa, USA, and West Indies have already qualified because they were the top seven teams in the 2024 T20 World Cup. This logic is killing the beauty of sports as only the top-ranked teams are getting the most benefit of it, whereas an upcoming team that might be doing well always misses out.
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India, Australia & other top nations should play qualifiers
The reason why India, South Africa, Australia, and other top nations not playing in the qualifiers is not known. But sources say that ICC might be fearing that any of the top teams might not qualify for the next round, and that could cost a huge commercial loss. In football, top countries like the Netherlands and Italy have failed to qualify for the World Cup. While it was shocking, such surprising results allowed smaller countries to rise.
In cricket, smaller nations like Japan, Spain, and France have never reached the top stage due to not qualifying for the next round.
Random scheduling not helping the cause
Unlike in football, the cricketing scheduling does not come as a surprise as the fans know beforehand that India and Pakistan will be put in the same group due to the commercialization and advertising revenue it generates. In football, 32 countries play the World Cup, and all the top teams must play in the qualifiers. Furthermore, the top-ranked nations (1-8) are placed in eight different groups, and the draw is made based on the rankings, with live broadcast.
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In cricket, there is no live broadcast as the schedule is announced on Twitter, with India and Pakistan in the same group. While it is great for fans, who always want these two teams to clash, it kills any novelty factor. If cricket wants to be expanded in other smaller countries, then major changes need to be implemented.
