Porterfield infuriated by minnows’ exclusion from World Cup

Ireland captain William Porterfield has branded the decision to exclude associate nations from the 2015 World Cup as “an embarrassment” and “a joke” and has warned it could kill the game in non-Test playing countries.

The ICC executive board had been considering overturning a previous decision to cut the number of teams at the World Cup from 14 to 10, with a compromise of 12 up for discussion in Mumbai yesterday.

Instead they reaffirmed their decision to make it a 10-team tournament and dealt the likes of Ireland, Holland and Canada a further blow with the revelation there would be no chance for associate members to qualify in four years.

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A qualification process will be held in 2019 but that could come too late, according to the seething Porterfield, who said: “It’s an absolute disgrace and I don’t know how they can even comprehend doing this.

“We have done everything they asked of us over the last few years in terms of restructuring Irish cricket and I can’t come to terms with how they can just shut us out, do away with the qualification period and then try and call this a World Cup.

“We are currently ranked 10th, ahead of Zimbabwe, and there is no reason we can’t move up another position, if not two, by the next World Cup. Instead, the door has been closed in our face.

“I don’t know what else we had to do in the World Cup. We held our own against the full members, we beat England, we got the fastest hundred. For them to turn around and throw that back in our face a few weeks later is an absolute joke.”

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Warwickshire opener Porterfield rejected the notion that an expanded 16-team World Twenty20 would help soften the blow to associate nations and called on the influential ICC executive board – which comprises representatives from each of the 10 full member nations as well as the organisation’s chief executive, president and vice-president – to assess their reasons for making the decision.

A statement following the ICC meeting read: “The executive board confirmed their decision, made in October 2010, that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand and the ICC Cricket World Cup in England in 2019 will be a 10-team event. The board agreed that the 2015 World Cup will comprise the existing 10 full members.

“However, they gave notice to all full members that participation in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup will be determined on the basis of qualification. It was also agreed that post the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 there will be promotion and relegation introduced in the ODI League.”