Thaindian News

Dubai, April 19 (IANS) International Cricket Council (ICC) president Sharad Pawar has requested the ICC executive board to reconsider its decision to keep associate nations out of the 2015 World Cup.

ICC has restricted the participation to 10 full-member nations for the 2015 edition to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand. The decision has been widely criticised in the cricketing world, and by Ireland, who despite their good performance in the just-concluded World Cup, would not be able to participate in the next edition.

After receiving representations from the associate and affiliate members of the ICC, Pawar has requested the ICC executive board, when it meets during the annual conference in Hong Kong in June, to review the composition of the tournament.

“I have given this matter further serious thought and will request the Board to consider this topic once more. I can understand the views of the associates and affiliates and ICC will seek to deal with this issue in the best way possible,” an ICC release Tuesday quoted Pawar as saying.

The news brings hope for Ireland, who are also ranked higher than full member Zimbabwe in the ODI table.

The ICC decided to go with 10 teams in 2015 and 2019 but the latter will have a qualification round for the associates.

“Ireland is currently ranked 10th in the world, above one of the 10 Test-playing nations a fact which has been completely disregarded,” Warren Deutrom, Chief of Ireland Cricket had said post the ICC meeting in Mumbai.

“I said before the World Cup that I would like to have seen the decision postponed until after the tournament had been played. That would have provided the ICC with an opportunity to make a full and fair assessment of all the evidence. Not only did they not do that but they have now completely disregarded all of the evidence provided by the tournament,” he said.