It is no exaggeration to say that the final Cricket World Cup qualifier will be as tense, arduous and important to the majority of the 10 nations taking part as the actual World Cup itself.
The Qualifying Tournament begins on 18 June in Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and will see four test nations attempting to claim the last two places in the World Cup in India in October and November. And they will face ferociously determined opposition from six ‘Associate’ nations with ambitions of their own.
It is also no exaggeration to say that international cricket in the Caribbean will be compromised to the point of irrelevance should the West Indies not reach the World Cup while Sri Lanka, who will be genuine contenders for the title in familiar conditions, will also suffer catastrophically should they fail to qualify.
The 10 teams in the tournament are seeded according to world rankings, so at least the West Indies and Sri Lanka are spared the ‘problem’ of meeting each other in the first round of the tournament but they will face off in the Super Six stage assuming they both finish in the top three of their five-team groups.
Group A – West Indies, Zimbabwe, Netherlands, Nepal, USA
Group B – Sri Lanka, Ireland, Scotland, Oman, UAE
Ordinarily, the Netherlands and Scotland would be strongly fancied to challenge the top-seeded teams but both are hampered by the unavailability of players who are contracted to English counties, especially the Dutch.
The entire bowling attack which humiliated the Proteas at last year’s T20 World are missing. Fred Klaasen, Paul van Meekeren, Brandon Glover, Colin Achermann and Roelof van der Merwe will all be playing county cricket as will allrounder Shane Snater and Timm van der Gugten.
Only one first-choice player with a county contract will be available, allrounder Bas de Leede having insisted that Durhan release him. “He’s a passionate and patriotic Dutchman so he didn’t really give us a choice,” said Durhan – and former Netherlands – head coach, Ryan Campbell. “We all hope he does well in the tournament and comes back to do even better for us.”
Scotland will be without three first-choice players but Ireland will be at full strength with batters Paul Sterling and Harry Tector expected to mount a strong campaign for World Cup inclusion alongside fast bowler Josh Little and allrounder Curtis Campher.
As always during a tournament involving so many teams, there are no end of inspirational stories involving individual performances and remarkable results but few can surpass the rise of Nepal who confounded most predictions by making it to Zimbabwe.
The ICC CWC League Two involved an arduous and exhausting 36 matches per team and Nepal had, apparently, been eliminated languishing in seventh place and needing to win 11 of their remaining 12 matches to finish third, the final qualifying place, behind Scotland and Oman. They did it – clinching their place in the Qualifier with a nail-biting 9-run DLS victory against the UAE in fading light and a frantic crowd in Kathmandu.
Namibia were bumped out by Nepal but were strongly tipped to still reach the Qualifier via Challenge League for the final two places in the Qualifier. But they were pipped in dramatic circumstances by the USA who booked their place in Zimbabwe with several dramatic, occasionally controversial victories.
If independent followers of the Tournament are interested in taking a ‘blind punt’, they may be interested in Nepal’s Gulshan Jha who became the third youngest ODI debutant at just 15 years of age in September 2021.
And for Oman, Aqib Ilyas scored the first ODI century for his country against Nepal in 2021 and followed it up with another against the USA two days later. There are many cricketers of great quality just waiting for a spotlight. Zimbabwe may provide it, especially as the Harare Sports Club finally has floodlights.
The top three teams in each group progress to the ‘Super Six’ stage where they will carry forward points earned against fellow qualifiers and play against those teams they did now meet in their group.
SQUADS:
IRELAND: Andrew Balbirnie (c), Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Graham Hume, Josh Little, Andy McBrine, Barry McCarthy, PJ Moor, Paul Stirling, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Ben White, Craig Young.
NEPAL: Rohit Paudel (c), Kushal Bhurtel, Aasif Sheikh, Gyanendra Malla, Kushal Malla, Aarif Sheikh, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gulsan Jha, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Sandeep Lamichhane, Bhim Sharki, Lalit Rajbanshi, Pratish JC, Arjun Saud, Kishor Mahato
NETHERLANDS: Scott Edwards (c), Max O'Dowd, Logan van Beek, Vikram Singh, Aryan Dutt, Viv Kingma, Bas de Leede, Noah Croes, Ryan Klein, Teja Nidamanuru, Wesley Barresi, Shariz Ahmad, Clayton Floyd, Michael Levitt, Saqib Zulfiqar.
OMAN: Zeeshan Maqsood (c), Aqib Ilyas (vc), Jatinder Singh, Kashyap Prajapati, Shoaib Khan, Mohammed Nadeem, Sandeep Goud, Ayaan Khan, Suraj Kumar, Adeel Shafique, Naseem Khushi, Bilal Khan, Kaleemullah, Fayyaz Butt, Jay Odedra, Samay Shrivastav, Rafiullah
SCOTLAND: Richie Berrington (c), Matthew Cross, Alasdair Evans, Chris Greaves, Jack Jarvis, Michael Leask, Tom Mackintosh, Chris McBride, Brandon McMullen, George Munsey, Adrian Neill, Safyaan Sharif, Chris Sole, Hamza Tahir, Mark Watt
SRI LANKA: Dasun Shanaka (c), Kusal Mendis (vc & wk), Dimuth Karunaratne, Pathum Nissanka, Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Sadeera Samarawickrama (wk), Wanindu Hasaranga, Chamika Karunaratne, Dushmantha Chameera, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara, Maheesh Theekshana, Matheesha Pathirana, Dushan Hemantha
UAE: Mohammad Waseem (c), Ethan D'Souza, Ali Naseer, Vriitya Aravind, Rameez Shahzad, Jawadullah, Asif Khan, Rohan Mustafa, Aayan Khan, Junaid Siddique, Zahoor Khan, Sanchit Sharma, Aryansh Sharma, Karthik Meiyappan, Basil Hameed
USA: Monank Patel (c), Aaron Jones (vc), Abhishek Paradkar, Ali Khan, Gajanand Singh, Jasdeep Singh, Kyle Philip,Nisarg Patel, Nostush Kenjige, Saiteja Mukkamalla, Saurabh Netravalkar, Shayan Jahangir, Steven Taylor, Sushant Modani, Usman Rafiq
WEST INDIES: Shai Hope (c), Rovman Powell (vc), Shamarh Brooks, Yannic Cariah, Keacy Carty, Johnson Charles, Roston Chase, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Kyle Mayers, Keemo Paul, Nicholas Pooran, Romario Shepherd
Zimbabwe: Ryan Burl, Tendai Chatara, Craig Ervine, Bradley Evans, Joylord Gumbie, Luke Jongwe, Innocent Kaia, Clive Madande, Wessly Madhevere, Tadiwanashe Marumani, Wellington Masakadza, Blessing Muzarabani, Richard Ngarava, Sikandar Raza, Sean Williams.