Porterfield: You’ve got to keep growing the game

2015 World Cup

Cricket365
March 18, 2015

Ireland captain William Porterfield has again called on the International Cricket Council (ICC) to rethink its decision to reduce the number of teams taking part in the next World Cup, in England in 2019.

Porterfield was speaking after Ireland got knocked out of the global tournament after losing to Pakistan, by seven wickets, in a do-or-die clash at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

The current World Cup had 14 teams, with two groups of seven, involving the 10 Test-playing nations and four Associate sides. The ICC's plan is to reduce the competition to just 10 teams, with the top eight ranked sides gaining entry, then the rest, including Ireland, will battle for the two remaining spots.

Porterfield said: "Why don't 10 teams just play cricket and every other country in the world not bother? You've got a Champions Trophy every two years and that’s the top eight sides so you're just making a World Cup every other year for the top eight to 10 sides, I don't think it’s right.

"I'm sure they're (the ICC) hoping everything blows over in the next few weeks and they don't hear much from us, then it’s just easy to brush it under the carpet, but I think something has to be done if they want to grow the game."

The Irish have shown that they can compete and even beat the Test-playing sides, they won Zimbabwe and West Indies, and only just lost out on a place in the knock-out stages through net run-rate.

Porterfield continued: "We have to be playing in these competitions and we've shown what we can do in them. We're unlucky we've missed out on the quarter-finals on net run-rate.

"We've shown what we can do when we get to these competitions with the minimal fixtures that we've had, so I think when we do get more fixtures then we're only going to keep improving and it’s the same with any other country.

"You've got to keep growing the game."