An U15 World Cup?
I would like to suggest that the ICC also think in terms of an U15 World Cup, just like they do for the U19. It would be an oppurtunity for the member countries to find talent much earlier, and start grooming them well between the 15-19 age group. Kids tend to also be able to adapt much better at that age than later in life.
The biggest reason why I am suggesting the U15 world cup is however, because most of the strong associate countries will actually be able to compete with the best after a short burst of intensive 2-3 year programme. For example, perhaps Hong Kong is a strong team at the U15 age group level, but it is weaker at the U19, and nowhere in the senior team level. But the U15 world cup will be a great oppurtunity for Hong Kong not only to benchmark their player, or take additional care of the special talent, but also create high interest in the players to keep on playing the game and be even more competitive at the U19 age level. Right now, what you have is the U19 World Cup, and after that the good players from the associates just go on with their lives, perhaps relegating cricket to an extracurricular activity on the weekends. But an U15 player who does well in a world cup will have the incentive of still being able to play in the U19 World Cup, and since he will be a kid (not a person doing a job), he will be able to give a lot of time everyday to improving his game till he is at least 20 years of age.
Most of the criticism of the U15 World Cup is that the kids are too young to represent the country. Thats baloney, when you have most of the gymnists in the Olympics U15, and even many cricketers like Tendulkar, Aaquib Javed, Afridi etc started off in the national teams when they were 15.5 or 16 years of age. Martina Hingis was 13 when she played her first grand slam, and a world champ at 16 ! And in any case, in Asia, Europe, Africa and even Americas you already have the regional tournaments for the U15s, so why not have a world cup on the same lines as the U19 WC (i.e. 16 teams, with 2 qualifiers from Europe, 1 from both Americas and Asia, and 2 from combined EAP/Africa) ?
The only thing is, to reduce the size of the boundary, and perhaps also make it a 40 over a side match instead of 50.
And no, I am not also going to suggest that you have an U11 world cup as well :). U15 is perhaps the youngest that you should go.
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Nasir M. Khan
Nishadh Rego
Nasir M. Khan\'s Cricket blog 
Not a bad idea, considering that the Associates could actually be on a more even keel considering that a lot of them have recently got school programs
off the ground. Certainly an outing like this would serve not only to highlight young players, but certainly potential coaching staff too.
U 19 WORLD CUP won’t have that much charm which U 19 has. But it would be good idea for developing countries like NEPAL to show their talents but not matured enough to expect with.
Sobhit, I think you meant “U15 WC wont have that much charm…..”
Yes, it wouldnt. Just like the U19 WC does not have that much charm that the actual WC has. These are essentially development tournaments, with the idea that the players from associates will play against the best in the world in that age group, and will go back to their countries and rub it off on the others.
But given that the U19 WC is held every two years, I dont think the ICC can get into another age level tournament in the alternate years. That would be too much. I think they may just keep it at the regional level, though I have never really heard of any U15 cricket activity going on in the EAP region (the other 4 are doing it, Asia every year)
it is really good because if we have u15 world cup we will learn more and when going to play u19 world cup we will now what to do and all so some of the country there good in u15 but some of them in u17
the icc should start this u-15 world cup and involve 32 teams in it in a format like the fifa football world cup. the u-15 world cup will help identify the talented players & also the non-test nations with talent. its the facilites which affect the development of cricketers later on, but at u-15, talent will matter much more than the facilities. also, it has been seen that by reducing the age level, we get more competitive teams & more close matches. at the senior level, only 8-9 teams r competitive, this increases to 12-13 in u-19s and will increase further in the u-15s. once the talent is identified, the player can be further developed.
also, besides starting the 32 team u-15 world cup, the no of teams in u-19 world cup should be increased to 20. currently its unfair for teams like scotland, afghanistan, kenya, uae, holland who have to sit out & teams like bermuda & png who r playing just bcoz they belong to different regions
realistically, a 32 team world cup is not possible, and i am not sure if it will give them the benefits at this point either…..
but a format and qualifying structure similar to what they have for u19 should be used for u15…….. but some countries have shown their reservation about whether an U15 team is mature enough to be handling a national tag!
one thing which is missing from U19 strucutre is a qualifying event, like ICC trophy…… I dont think it is in the best interest of anyone involved to push through teams which may be a lot weaker than those that have been knocked out. For e.g Afghanistan/ Kenya sitting out while PNG and Bermuda are playing…….
i said about a 32 team world cup at the u-15 level as there will be more competitive teams at the u-15 level & things like professionalism wont matter at the u-15 level and talent will matter the most at that level. with u-15 world cup, the talented players in both the test-playing & associate nations can be identified at an early age & also associate members with potential can be identified early as well & development work for the assocaite nations carried out accordingly so that they remain in the top 20 to qualify for the u-19 world cups.
at the u-19 level, the no of teams should be increased to 20 keeping the format the same, but with 5 teams in each group instead of 4. the current format was ver unfair to scotland, holland, afghanistan & kenya. also a u-19 world cup qualifying tournament should be held so that the 10 best associates qualify for the main event. currently the u-19 qualification is too region-oriented with icc’s policy of giving equal representation to equal regions, i have to agree with nasir on this
i dont think there is a need to increase the teams to 20 if you are holding the qualifying tournament……. teh number of teams should be increased only if a) qualifying tournament is not possible or b) the associates start beating the test teams consistently 🙂
If the ICC were to hold an U15 WC, the first priority would be to ensure that all 16 teams participating are good enough, which should be achievable….If this happens, then I think the format can be expanded to 20 teams…
But before that, the ICC must get its qualification for such tournaments right because you can’t have teams like PNG and Bermuda playing in the U19 version when there are clearly stronger teams like Sco, Neth, Afg, Ken, Ugan (and maybe even UAE, Denmark, Canada!?) missing out…
As I say this, it looks like the top 10 teams from the 2008 U19 WC will gain auto qualification to the 2010 tournament, irrespective of whether they are Test or Associate nations…So theoretically, Associates have to finish Plate runnersup to gain direct entry….should be interesting to see if some Associate, esp Nepal displaces one of the Test teams and finishes in the top 10….
Ram,
Where did you see this new ruling on the 2010 WC qualification?
Also, Canada lost to Bermuda in the U19 qualifying, so I think it is unfair to say that they should have been here instead of Bermuda. Within their region, Bermuda qualified fair and square; its the regional disparities in standards that we are talking about.
Nasir – The Under-19 World Cup thing has been announced on the Malaysian Cricket Association website.
I think The MCA might have jumped the gun a bit here.
The ICC has stated that this is up for discussion at future meetings.
So it may or may not see the light of day.
hi i play for the canadian u15 team and ive heard there is going to be a u15 world cup in 2009