ECC Div 1 and England
This year there will be 5 countries in the European Championships Division 1 tournament; Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy and Denmark. This division is the premier league of the tournament, with the champion country ending up to become the ECC champions.
It is time for England to also start particiapting in this premier division. Ireland, Scotland and Netherlands already have ODI status, so it is not like England would not be gaining anything out of it; perhaps some easy runs, some easy wickets. But England’s participation is going to make this tournament serious business, and the other participating countries are likely to take immense interest in it, especially their country’s games against England. Plus, it is common knowledge that only by playing stronger opposition will the associates improve. And one should never underestimate the power of an upset. Imagine a match taking place between England and Ireland in Dublin for this tournament in which Ireland upsets England in front of a 10K strong crowd!! That will make 10K lifelong cricket fans in that country.
If this were to happen, then ECC can even think about making it a yearly 2 week event, with relegation only happenning every two years when the second division tournament also takes place. Perhaps it can even become a commercial tournament for the ECC instead of the development cost tournament that it currently is.
So the 6th team that ECC will be adding to Division 1 after 2006 need not be coming in from below, but rather from the top.
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Nasir M. Khan
Nishadh Rego
Nasir M. Khan\'s Cricket blog 
I’m not 100% sure about the English squad being able to participate owing to their international commitments, but if they could find the time it would be fantastic.
What might be an idea is for the ICC to allocate a time window for the test countries to participate in tournaments against the div 1 associates in their region. I know that the top countries would probably rest their top players at first, but once (not if) the type of upsets you talked about begin to happen, then there could be a major shift in the attitude of the test nations.
Either way it would generate great publicity particularly when (as you mentioned) the Associates are able to pull off victories on home soil against the test nations.
I dont think time is going to be a problem. During summers, the only test tours going on are in England, and they usually give long breaks between tests and the natwest series anyway, so that the touring countries can participate in the games with the county sides. In any case, a tournament like this can be finihsed from anywhere in 8 days to 14, because there will only be 16 matches.