New Zealand's joint hosting of the Pacifica Cup in Auckland next month is the most visible demonstration yet of the International Cricket Council's desire to broaden the world-wide appeal of cricket.

A New Zealand Maori team has been selected to represent New Zealand in the competition which will involve most of the cricket-playing nations in the Pacific region.

There was a time in New Zealand when visits by Fiji were highly popular events because of the prodigious hitting power of the Fijian batsmen. But in recent times there has been little if any contact with Fijian cricket, and this competition is one step toward improving that relationship, and also the contact with Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

The Pacifica tournament is part of a grand plan to lift cricket's world profile. Development is taking place in five regions, Africa, the Americas, Asia, East Asia-Pacific and Europe.

New Zealander Andrew Eade has a special interest in this tournament. Apart from his work as the ICC's development manager, he is a former coach in Auckland having coached the provincial women's team for four years.

The development programme has specific objectives.

Closing the gaps between countries is an obvious first step.

Developing tournament structures is another. The Pacifica Cup is one example of this. It is intended that similar tournaments will be planned around the world at senior level to start with but an under-19 tournament later as well. They are intended to be held every four years. The African under-19 championships are being played in Uganda this month.

An Americas under-19 championship is to be played in Philadelphia in August this year while the South American championships were played in Buenos Aires last month.

Europe is the busiest of the regional groupings and had seven regional tournaments last year.

Twelve teams will compete in the ICC Trophy this year with automatic qualifying for the next World Cup, in 2003, as the prize. It is intended 14 teams will compete at the next World Cup which leaves chances for three teams to qualify.

Building a participation base in each country is the third development phase. Eade has recently been contacted, independently, by cricket clubs in Jakarta and Bali. Part of his job is to help establish an Indonesian Cricket Association and he has the use of an ICC ambassador like Sir Richard Hadlee to help get the message across.

There was no doubt that ex-patriots from Test-playing nations are behind much of the interest in cricket in these countries. But each country did present different needs.

Widening the cricket market was important because of the development that can be done by utilising income from the sale of television rights.

Emphasising the spirit of cricket and the game's traditional values is the final point in the development programme.

Another area of interest is the links with women's cricket. Eade was in New Zealand during the CricInfo Women's World Cup and had discussions with the new president of the International Women's Cricket Council, Chris Brierley about future links between the ICC and the IWCC.

"We agreed on a joint research and development programme to find out exactly what is happening in the women's game so we can then work with the IWCC to develop a plan.

"If we can work it out together we can avoid a lot of the political details," Eade said.

There was no doubt in Eade's mind that there was a role for women to play in the development of cricket. The CricInfo involvement had shown there were interest in the game while the success of women's soccer, especially in the United States where the home team won the World Cup, was a terrific example to use to demonstrate the place for women's sport.

It is exciting times in the development phase and the Pacifica Cup is one small step along the way.

The full list of ICC members, full, associate and affiliated, is:

Africa: (Full) South Africa, Zimbabwe; (Associate) East & Central Africa - Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Namibia, Uganda; West Africa - Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone; (Affiliate) Morocco.

Americas: (Full) West Indies; (Associate) Argentina, Bermuda, Canada, USA; (Affiliate) Bahamas, Belize, Cayman Islands.

Asia: (Full) Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka; (Associate) Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, United Arab Emirates; (Affiliate) Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Thailand.

East Asia-Pacific: (Full) Australia, New Zealand; (Associate) Fiji, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea; (Affiliate) Brunei, Cook Islands, Japan, Philippines, Tonga, Vanuatu, Western Samoa.

Europe: (Full) England; (Associate) Denmark, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland; (Affiliate) Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.

© CricInfo