Opinion: Some issues with U19 WC 2006…

U19 WC 2006 was the most competitive WC ever in the history of cricket. Not just at the U19 level, but at an overall level. Bangladesh was a forerunner to the title, and both WI and Zim had very strong teams. In addition, Nepal was like a test country's junior team, while Ireland managed to lose to Eng by only 4 runs, and were probably celebrating their win against NZ when one guy played a blinder and stole it from them on the last ball.

Two of the weaker teams in my opinion, Uganda and Namibia, may not have warranted a place in the tournament had there been a world league for the U19 WC. I think both Netherlands and Malaysia were hard done in the tournament due to the format of qualification. Malaysia, since 2004, have only been losing to Nepal in the finals of the U19 ACC trophy, and probably would beat one of Namibia and Uganda easily. Netherlands on the other hand, have the problem of having to beat Scotland and Ireland in order to qualify for the U19 WC, which are obviously stronger teams in their region, and much stronger than the teams from Africa or Americas.

Scotland were the team that performed much below par in the tournament. They managed to start off pretty well by scaring Srilanka big time, but then kept on going from bad to worse, eventually losing to even Uganda to finish last in the tournament. The team was much better than that. Perhaps the high expectations bore down on them, or perhaps there was some other reason. But the team that was ranked higher than Ireland in the Europe region should not have performed way below Ireland in the tournament.

Now I am thinking whether it is or is not a good idea to have a WCQS tournament for the associates at the U19 level, with 3 teams from every region, to fight off for the final 6 spots in the WC. That would ensure that the best associate level teams are selected for the U19 WC, becuase they have the best chance to do well, like Nepal, and give cricket a big boost in their countries. But the downside is that one region may take up all the spots, hence hampering the development of other regions, like Africa or EAP. In one way the ICC already did that by having a single qualifier for both Africa and EAP instead of giving them both one slot each. All of Uganda, Namibia and Kenya turned out to be better than PNG, which would have otherwise qualified if the top ranked team in EAP region had been given the spot automatically.

Perhaps, it is best to have 20 teams in the tournament after all. Have the top team from every region qualify automatically. Then have a WCQS of the next best 3 teams in every region to see which should qualify for the WC for the remaining 5 spots.

I am not sure, and would like to see others opinion on this.