05 April,2011 08:16 AM IST | | Correspondent
Chief Executive of Cricket Ireland Warren Deutrom yesterday labelled the International Cricket Council's decision to exclude Associate nations (that includes Ireland) from the 2015 Cricket World Cup as an "absolute outrage."
Yesterday in its board meeting the ICC reiterated the fact that the 2015 edition of World Cup will feature only 10 teams, sans the minnow nations.
"The International Cricket Council hasn't quite decided on the format but it will be a 10-nation event," ICC chief executive, Haroon Lorgat, told reporters here yesterday.
This decision was reaffirmed by an ICC statement which said that only the 10 test-playing nations would compete in 2015 while promising that a formal qualification process would be introduced prior to the 2019 tournament which will be hosted in England.
Ireland had a fairly impressive World Cupu00a0 defeating the Netherlands and upsetting cricket powerhouse England. And the decision comes as a huge blow to Irish cricket which had hoped to kick on from an impressive showing at the World Cup and further the development of the game in this country.
Speaking to TheScore, Deutrom slammed the decision asu00a0 "a complete travesty which flies in the face of every equitable sporting principle and which flies in the face of the performance of Ireland and the other associate nations at the World Cup."
"Ireland is currently ranked 10th in the world, above one of the 10 test-playing nations, a fact which has been completely disregarded. I said before the World Cup that I would like to have seen the decision postponed until after the tournament had been played. But they did not do that and have now completely disregarded all of the evidence provided by the tournament," said Deutrom.
