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1 hour ago
The chief executive of the Jersey Cricket Board says qualifying places for the T20 World Cup need to be more fairly distributed.
The island side narrowly missed out on a place at next year’s World Cup after finishing third in European qualifying as Netherlands and Italy reached the main tournament in India and Sri Lanka.
But Sarah Gomarsall says there are too few places for European nations at the event compared to other parts of the world and hopes to raise the matter with the International cricket Council (ICC).
“Europe is made up of 33 cricketing nations, and we only have two spots available to go to the World Cup,” she told BBC Radio Jersey.
“Two between 33 countries is not enough, so it’s talking to them about that, and trying to get more qualification spots.”
ICCGomarsall also wants more consistency in the qualifying process.
Jersey played in a five-team round-robin format event in the Netherlands this summer to try and qualify.
Jersey, the hosts, Italy, Scotland and Guernsey all faced each other once with the two sides with the best record going through.
Jersey beat Scotland and Guernsey after narrowly losing to the Netherlands and having their game with Italy rained off – missing out on qualification on net run rate.
But different continents around the world have different qualifying formats and Europe’s two places from 33 nations is the lowest proportion from any of the regional events.
“When we played in the Netherlands, it was a single round robin format, so high jeopardy for the teams that are playing – each match is extremely important,” Gomarsall said.
“If you flip that to the qualifier that we’ve just had out in Oman for the Asia and East Asia Pacific region, they had a single round robin followed by a Super Sixes tournament.
“So more opportunities for them to play the qualifying competitive games, and more chances to get through – and they have three qualifying spots.
“There does need to be a little bit more consistency in terms of how the ICC organises events.”
