Cricket's underdogs rising up against big boys

After New Zealand's shock T20I loss to the UAE on Saturday, Tim Southee was asked what went wrong in the game. The Black Caps skipper started his speech by giving the UAE their due credit for the win. "That's the beauty of the sport. A lot of credit has to go to the UAE side," he said. 

Prior to that match, New Zealand were the only team not to lose a single match to a non-Test playing nation. The UAE's win over them was an indication of how much Associate cricket has improved over the years. 

During the second T20I between Ireland and India at Malahide on Sunday, broadcasters Rohan Gavaskar and Andrew Leonard spoke about the rapid rise of the non-Test playing teams and the latter gave the example of a T20 World Cup Qualifier game last month where Ireland were almost stunned by 31st-ranked Italy. 

In that match in Edinburgh, Italy pushed Ireland, who famously beat England last year in the 2022 T20 World Cup, hard but eventually lost by seven runs. 

Ireland along with Afghanistan received Test status on 22 June, 2017. Since then, Associate members have claimed wins over Full Members in 43 out of 179 matches in international cricket and the win percentage stands at 24%, a figure much higher than that of the previous 17 years (14.8%).

The biggest gainers during this period are the Netherlands with 12 wins. They will deservedly be the only Associate Member in the ten-team ODI World Cup later this year in India. Scotland and the UAE have 10 wins apiece over Test-playing nations during this period.

Scotland beat three Full Members - the West Indies, Ireland and Zimbabwe - in the World Cup Qualifiers in June-July and were unlucky not to seal a spot in the mega tournament. 

Namibia upset bigger teams in both the 2021 and 2022 editions of the T20 World Cup. A cricket-crazy Nepal have qualified for the upcoming Asia Cup.

There have been talks about the globalization of the game for a very long time but the obvious gap in strength between Full Members and Associate teams always posed a big question mark. But with the introduction of T20 cricket, teams have been able to bridge the gap big time. T20, being a fast game, doesn't let players make too many mistakes and allows teams to always stay in the contest.

Franchise-based T20 leagues are in vogue now in a lot of countries including non-Test playing ones like Canada, United States and the UAE which means there are a lot of slots to be filled up by Associate players. This has helped these teams big time.

"UAE beating New Zealand is a big achievement and it's also showing us what franchise cricket has succeeded in doing. There is hope for the next generation cricketer coming from countries that aren't mainstream test nations and that's good news for the game," said India's Ravichandran Ashwin after the UAE's win over New Zealand. 

Notably, there were 18 overseas Associate players in the recently-concluded Global T20 Canada. Six of them were from the UAE and three - Muhammad Waseem, Aayan Afzal Khan and Vriitya Aravid - were part of the UAE side that beat New Zealand. All three had a big role in that game.

Aayan, who got the opportunity to pick fellow spinner Shakib Al Hasan's brains in the GT20, bagged the Player of the Match award against New Zealand. Just like that, Associate cricketers get the chance to play alongside and against established internationals and learn the trade.

According to the ICC's revenue sharing model for the 2024-27 cycle, The 12 Full Members will collectively take 88.81% with the rest distributed among 94 associate members. That's a glaring gap.

"The new model is now even more heavily weighted towards the bigger cricketing nations, and there is a risk that the proposed changes will exacerbate this imbalance, putting the future of the game at further risk," Vanuatu Cricket Association Chief Executive Tim Cutler told Reuters in May.

A lot of cricketers playing for the Associate Nations can't support themselves and their families by just playing cricket. Many of them have to do other jobs.

But amid all these, there is hope. The next T20 World Cup will feature 20 teams. The ODI World Cup will expand to 14 teams in 2027 which means the world will see more non-Test playing teams taking part in ICC events in future. Associate cricket has never been stronger and their improvement is definitely good news for the game.