The 2009 edition of the ICC World T20 will be played in the West Indies, and there will be 12 teams participating in the tournament. Ten of them will be the top nine test playing nations and Zimbabwe, whereas the remaining two sides will be obtained from the ICC World T20 qualifiers.
There has been a lot of controversy regarding USA’s participation in the tournament as they are currently ranked outside the top-ten Associate nations. Questions have been asked of the ICC as to what have they done to deserve the wild card, but ICC’s answer has been on the lines of encouraging a side which has shown potential to grow before they had been banned by the ICC for the issues within the USACA.
There are eight teams that will play in the qualifiers, which will be played in UAE. This will include the six sides from the World Cricket League Division I apart from the hosts UAE and a wild card entrant – USA. The teams are Ireland, Canada, Kenya, the Netherlands, Afghanistan, Scotland, UAE and USA. The qualifier was supposed to be held in October, but has been postponed to early next year.
The first edition of the ICC World T20 in 2007 saw Kenya and Scotland qualify for the tournament. In 2009, Scotland again managed to qualify for the tournament, but were joined by Ireland instead. USA will have a chance for a shot at qualifying for the tournament, but they can rest assured that it will not be easy. The game against Afghanistan will obviously be a much awaited match considering the kind of political background between the two countries, but the rest of the games will be equally tough if not tougher.
Report by Examiner.com
No comments:
Post a Comment