It's been quite a summer for the leading associate nations. Despite many people touting Afghanistan as the best non-test team after their meteoric rise up the world cricket ranks Ireland demonstrated their calibre at the World Cricket League division 1 tournament. While Kenya and Canada floundered the Scots seemed revitalised after a miserable eighteen months.
But the WCL1 proved a mere courtain raissr for the summer's key contests, with European associates taking on Bangladesh. Ireland defeated them yet again with Gloucesterhsire's Will Porterfield and Middlesex's Paul Stirling putting their test cousins to the sword and dispelling the myth there is an unbridgeable gap between the test teams and the rest. When the Dutch recorded their maiden ODI win over a full member this message was echoed, but louder.
But these historic victories, testament to the success of the ICC's High Performance Programme in making leading assocites genuinely competitive, may yet count for nothing with news that the ICC are considering the breathtakingly ill-conceieved move to restrict the world cup to just the test teams. As if with a mere 10% of international teams participating that term could be used?
Painting the town Orange
Dutch defeat Englnd in T20 WC
