Minnows need to be encouraged

Minnows like Kenya, Bermuda, Scotland, Netherlands, Canada and Ireland need to be encouraged so that they become a force to reckon with while facing established teams like Australia, India, England and Pakistan.

It is the bigger platforms like the World Cup and other ICC (International Cricket Council) tournaments that really give them a chance not only to show case their talent but also rub shoulders with giants like Australia and South Africa.

Watching top cricketers in action is itself a learning curve as it teaches a young lad or a young player the right way to position himself while playing the drive or how to position oneself while playing a hook shot or a sweep shot or how a smooth run-up helps a fast bowler to bowl better.

So when the lesser known teams play against better known teams, the former will invariably learn a lot and benefit more than playing among themselves. For a lowly placed team to improve fast, the ICC has to give more and more exposure against big teams even though some of the matches in the earlier part of a mega event like the World Cup might become a bit boring and one-sided stuffs.

If Sri Lanka were not given enough international exposure in the early stages, they would not have achieved whatever fame and name they have right now. So was the case with Indian or Pakistan.

Hence maximum exposure at an early stage is very crucial to the development of any team provided they also get solid backing from their respective association and enough encouragement from other Test playing nations as well.

Probably even Bangladesh have started believing that they have the experience and talent to upset the big guns and that is one of the reasons they managed to stun New Zealand in a practice match before the current World Cup in the West Indies.

According to media reports from the West Indies quite a few of the lesser known teams have improved by leaps and bounds, which again is a very good sign for the game of cricket. So it will not be a big shock if some of the minnows get the better off their more fancied rivals.

Even though the current Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting and the former West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding have criticized the advent of so many lesser known teams in the fray, Indian skipper Rahul Dravid and Kiwi captain Stephen Fleming have shown more sympathy towards their cause.

In fact Dravid has gone on records saying that one of the minnows, Bangladesh, have the talent to upset bigger teams and cannot be taken lightly when the two teams clash in their

Group-B match at Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain in Trinidad on March 17.

Probably what Ponting and Holding don’t realize or don’t want to is that in the long run, the game of cricket will benefit immensely if more number of nations compete.

Even in other sports like football, tennis or badminton the respective world bodies have made their sports popular world wide by encouraging lesser known nations to take up the sport. Today football is considered as the most popular sports in the world because more than 300 nations follow the game.

If the same trend is not encouraged in cricket, than the game will lose its popularity even in the countries where it is considered very popular. Cricket was the most popular game in the West Indies not so long ago but today football and basketball have taken over on the popularity chart from cricket, which is sad indeed.