There has been a rekindling of the debate surrounding whether associate nations are given enough exposure at the top level by the ICC, on the back of emotional speeches by Scotland captain Preston Mommsen and Netherlands captain Peter Borren, after the respective teams’ exits from the World T20.
Scotland captain Mommsen said after the Zimbabwe defeat that every time an associate nation comes out to play, their players are playing for recognition, funding, and a place in cricket’s upper echelons. He had bemoaned that these countries’ teams were never afforded the luxury of a bilateral series.
Harsha Bhogle tweeted his thoughts reflecting on larger truths, but his comments did not go down well with cricketers, most noticeably from the Scottish team.
Mommsen himself replied indignantly, and his Scottish teammates joined in to support their captain:
George Munsey took Bhogle’s tweet as an affront to the fighting spirit of the Scottish to get recognition in the cricketing world. Matt Machan went to the extent of comparing Scotland’s plight to India’s – while one team struggles to get enough matches, the other complains of a schedule which is too packed.
However, as can be seen from what Bhogle clarified in a longer Facebook post very soon, his stance had not been anti-emerging nations at all. He had only been saying that the attitude needs to remain positive. The Facebook post:
My posts on twitter need a longer explanation. I am, and will always be, a supporter of taking cricket to further...
Posted by Harsha Bhogle on Friday, March 11, 2016
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