ICC to plan expansion of the game with new development head

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is eager to expand the game of cricket beyond the 10 teams that play international cricket now as full members and 39 associate members. And so the ICC’s regional development teams will meet at the headquarters in Dubai to chalk out a long-term blueprint for the growth of the game.

Recently ICC appointed William Glenwright who served in a similar position in rugby as the head of the global development. The objective of the meeting will be to outline a 3-year plan which will be presented ahead of the ICC development committee which is currently without a head after former BCCI president Anurag Thakur was sacked by the Supreme Court of the country.

“Because for quite a while ICC’s development activity was run separately to other ICC businesses, one of the things we’re very keen to do is to develop a more integrated approach to development,” Glenwright was quoted by ESPNcricinfo. “One of the things I’ve learnt in my first couple of months, outside of established cricket countries – and this is true of all sport – the biggest challenge you have in growing the game and getting more people to play, is to actually build the awareness of the game in the first place.

“In order to do that, we need to work more closely with our experts – and that’s our broadcast department, our media department. We need to work in a more integrated fashion with them to build that awareness.”

Also read- Adam Zampa not too pleased to be left out for the India tour

Glenwright also admitted that before taking over he had a remote idea of the functioning of the International Cricket Council and has been curiously picking things since being inducted.

“I had a baseline understanding of what the ICC was doing, and also the challenges the game and the administration was facing,” he said. “I did come in with my eyes wide open. What I’ve found from my first two months is that there is a genuine appetite at the board level and the administration to propel cricket on a new growth trajectory. That is reflected in the governance changes that are currently being considered by the board. It is certainly reflected in the funding models that are being examined.”

While there are continuous talks of spreading the game the ICC’s decision to play the World Cup 2019 with just 10 teams has been criticized. Glenwright agreed that it is “a valid discussion and concern”.

“As we’ve seen from recent developments at the Football World Cup, regardless of the size of your tournament, more countries always want to be a part of it,” he said. “One of the things I’ve noticed and admire is that the pathway to the Cricket World Cup, irrespective of the size, is such that every member federation has the opportunity to participate in a qualification process and furthermore, the ICC heavily subsidises the pathway. That is very rare among international federations.

[interaction id=”588477a06904cee705a694cb”]

Maintaining the ICC’s stand he said that while there is a willingness to include more teams there are certain obstacles the associate teams face with funds but they are constantly trying to smooth through such issues.

“The narrative tends to be around the number of teams competing and I get that, that’s fair enough. That is a valid discussion and concern, but at the same time, there’s no good having a large World Cup if most of your member federations can’t afford to participate in the qualification process. What cricket has done very well is remove as many of those barriers as possible.”