Mcc Calls For World Cup Rethink

14 Jul 2015 | tshego

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The Marylebone Cricket Club has urged the International Cricket Council to rethink its decision to cut the number of teams at the Cricket World Cup to ten, while also calling for cricket to be considered for inclusion at the Olympic Games.

The MCC’s World Cricket Committee called on the ICC to rethink the decision to cut the World Cup from 14 to 10 teams, calling the move a “retrograde step” and “a handbrake for the development of the sport”.

It has instead it recommended a 12-team tournament preceded by a preliminary qualification round.

The committee also claimed that the England and Wales Cricket Board has dropped its opposition to the idea of the sport being added to the Olympic programme.

The opposition of the ECB president, Giles Clarke, to T20 cricket becoming an Olympic sport had previously been seen as a stumbling block to a campaign to have it considered for inclusion in the 2024 Games.

However the committee – which includes former players such as Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly – have now indicated that the new chairman Colin Graves and new chief executive Tom Harrison were willing to rethink England’s position.

The committee reported: “The Olympics is a fundamental opportunity for cricket.

“Competing in an Olympic Games would be a massive boost to developing cricket nations, and give much greater exposure for the sport to a new audience.”

Meanwhile, the Champions League Twenty20 has been discontinued with immediate effect.

The tournament, which has run since 2009 and featured the top T20 sides from most of the major Test-playing countries, has reportedly been cancelled because of “limited public following”.