England’s former dirt-in-the-pocket captain Mike Atherton had some interesting views which he aired recently and it revolved around why he thought cricket is not a “world game”.

According to Atherton, there is a widening chasm between the rich and the poor countries and he feared that this two-tiered system was not for the well-being of cricket.

“You’ve got four very strong nations (financially) in India, England, Australia and South Africa to a lesser extent, and then a lot of ailing nations,” Atherton pointed out, obviously counting Sri Lanka among the latter.

He adds: “If you only have three or four strong nations, cricket is diminishing all the time and you get what’s happening at the moment, with England playing Australia more often and playing India more often, and that fixture list diminishes. You can’t call it the world game if only four nations play the game. It’s in the long-term interests to make sure the other countries are strong.”

Mike Atherton

Atherton is partly right. Yes, there is no way cricket can count itself as a global sport if only a few are catered to. That is like the Americans calling the climax to its baseball season the World Series. But then again, that is America for you – all hype.

But Atherton is blinkered too by only taking into account the other six full members of the ICC – West Indies, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe – and not really looking at the bigger picture which is the rest of the world.

Sadly Atherton’s viewpoint is the one held by the world governing body too. The International Cricket Council is miles behind other team sports with an English heritage – football and rugby – when it comes to promoting and developing the sport.

Atherton only talks about his worries that “the rest of the world” is being left behind. But that is limited to only the six remaining full members of the ICC. What about the rest of the world, the true rest of the world?

I’m talking about those associate nations, of which company Sri Lanka once belonged to before gaining full membership in 1981. I’m talking about the likes of Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Afghanistan, and who knows maybe down the road even a place like Hong Kong.

All these teams are presently involved in the qualifying tournament for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 in Bangladesh. This tournament – the West Indies will defend its title which if you remember they won in Colombo beating Sri Lanka defending a small total – is a classic example of the ICC’s moribund thinking.

Let’s backtrack a little. Two years ago the ICC held its annual conference in Hong Kong where a number of contentious issues were dealt with. Among them was the prickly topic of how many teams should play at the World Cup (50 overs) and the World Twenty20, the two big money-spinners for the ICC.

Following the success of the 2011 World Cup (one of the many finals Sri Lanka has lost going down to India by six wickets) where 14 teams played, 10 full members and four associates, it was felt that the tournament dragged on for too long and the ICC brought forward a proposal that the 2015 edition be limited to just 10 teams.

This proposal met with huge opposition from the associate members at the Hong Kong conference resulting in the 14-team format being reinstated. But the ICC extracted its pound of flesh on the associates and cut the World Twenty20 in 2012 from 16 to 12.To make it even worse, next year’s World Twenty20 in Bangladesh has been further reduced and only 10 teams will participate. This has resulted in the six top teams from the ongoing qualifying tournament in the United Arab Emirates going on to meet hosts Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in another qualifying event to decide which two countries will join the remaining eight full members.

World cricket is a closed shop with only the few catered to. Unlike the football World Cup, which next year in Brazil will feature 32 teams, or rugby’s World Cup in 2015 in England where 20 teams will take part, in cricket both the limited over editions are, well, very limited.

The 50 overs has 14 teams and the Twenty20 has 10. So how can cricket call itself a world game?

Everything is pandered to television. At the 2011 World Cup where Canada, Ireland, Kenya and the Netherlands represented the associate members, it was felt many of the games involving these countries were one-sided. And with more teams, the tournament stretched out longer – six weeks – making it a less than ideal platform to keep the interest of the fan.

Hence the move by the ICC to reduce numbers, but this comes at a heavy cost with the smaller nations not being given the opportunities to grow the game and interest back home.

But the real reason was that the ICC had come up with a format which ensured that big nations like India would remain until the final rounds. This followed the debacle in 2009 in the Caribbean when India and Pakistan were knocked out in the preliminaries (Pakistan losing to Ireland followed by the death of their coach Bob Woolmer is a stark memory).

In today’s money game, it is important that the big guns stay in the race for as long as possible. Broadcasting rights are sold for billions in India. Who cares about Ireland or Canada.

This is sad. In Test cricket, there is an argument that standards must be high in order to be accepted into the company of the elite. The ICC’s two main criteria for entry in fact are (a) a good playing record and (b) the existence of a first-class domestic competition.

How many countries can boast of that among the associates? No wonder that since Bangladesh in 2000, there has been no other country being awarded full membership,

This list proves what a closed shop it is. England, Australia and South Africa were the founding members in 1909; New Zealand, West Indies and India joined them in 1926, Pakistan in 1952, Sri Lanka in 1981, Zimbabwe in 1992 and lastly Bangladesh.

Ireland has been knocking on the door for a long time but if true expansion is to happen, then it must come in the limited versions of the game, most ideally in Twenty20.

The ICC must change its encrusted outlook and use this version, which gives smaller nations more of a chance to be competitive, as a tool to make the game more global. Until that happens, cricket is a closed shop.