This years ICC Trophy tournament in Canada is looming as a debacle with many supporters of the developing cricket world dumb founded at how the place -getters will be decided.

This embarrassing system, which heavily favours nations ranked in Division One and virtually makes it impossible for Division Two nations to qualify through to the World Cup in 2003, has created tremendous resentment from many associate cricket followers.

Did all 24 associate nations vote on this system or just some of them?

Who's idea was it to base a ranking system on results dating back to 1997?

For goodness sake! The whole concept of rankings in sport whether it be in tennis, golf, cricket or otherwise is to compile and analyse accurate and up-to-date results. If applicable recent results cannot be found then a rankings system cannot be compiled.

Imagine if world tennis rankings were compiled in such a haphazard manner. It would not be tolerated!

There is no doubt that Uganda, Namibia, Nepal and East Africa and maybe even a few other Division Two nations have the ability to beat nations from Division One. Yet those four nations cannot realistically expect to make it through to the final stages of the tournament thanks to this dishonorable system. These nations would be justified if they were outraged. After all, they have been made quite impotent for this tournament by the ICC decision makers.

Fortunately there is still time to correct this ridiculous situation. Every follower of Associate cricket wants this tournament to be fair to all nations. That is the bottom line. Anything less than that is morally unsatisfactory.

So lets change the format of the tournament while there is still time.

There is no legal or technical reason why this cannot be achieved. Just break the 24 nations up into four groups of six.

Lets fix it now! If The ICC wants what is best for cricket and we all believe they do, then they will correct this situation immediately. This tournament is simply too important not to get right.

Thanks again
Ben Stinga
Perth, West Australia

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