Friday, October 19, 2001
It has been around since Test cricket began -- the myopic movement which questions the wisdom of allowing new teams to join the top flight of international cricket. Now, after Bangladesh's dismal performance in the Asian Test Championship, and Kenya's less-than-convincing early forays in South Africa, these elitists want them dumped back in the second class of cricket nations. They shame the game, elitists argue. A sport that prides itself on high standards is dishonoured. This premature embrace of the unworthy is a sham. Well, one man's blight is another man's bounty. Sanctimony, I would argue, needs to be banished more urgently than inexperience.

That these doubting voices generally emanate from Australia and England is no surprise. It must be awfully irksome to have a private club of two members over-run with all sorts of unsavoury types. It is also easy to damn the novices when you had no hoops to jump through yourself -- you just created them. This elitist view also conveniently forgets the dismal beginnings of some of today's established Test nations.

The expansion of the cricket world is both inevitable and desirable. It brings new venues, fresh faces, and original methods, such as the carefree attacking play of Kenya's Ravindu Shah and Steve Tikolo. Even Kenya's dropped catches (all horizontal dives) and misfields are entertaining. When Bangladesh's Mohammad Ashraful became the youngest Test cricketer to score a century, he stole one of the most prized records in cricket. Left to the elitists, these moments would not have happened.

Elitism never taught anyone much. Saying you can be invited on to the top table if you "do as we do" is an educational model that has seen its day. Experience is the best teacher, and inclusiveness is more likely to raise standards than lecturing from on high.

Quality remains the main obsession of elitists. But why should quality matter more than infrastructure and a commitment to compete at international level? Football is not weighed down by this quality argument. All countries with an association affiliated to FIFA can theoretically win the World Cup. There is no quality bar beyond how you perform over 90 minutes.

Yet we have to suffer the elitists damning this country or that country for not being up to Test or international standard. But can anyone define this quality? How is it validated? Should a Test nation be demoted when it dips below it? How long do you have to surpass it before being accepted -- one session, one day, or one year? These are questions that are impossible to answer with any consistency or fairness. It would be best to drop the bogus quality-filter altogether. At least it might stop the elitists carping about Bangladesh or Kenya every time they get a hammering.

Two comments struck me during Kenya's enjoyable triumph over India. Geoffrey Boycott observed: "That first match was embarrassing. Now they're playing cricket." Back at Sky Television's super-lowbrow studio discussion, Chris Cowdrey eked out: "They [Kenya] are playing in a manner that I thought they were months away from." That is what competing with better sides achieves. Cricket's elitists would arrest that development, preaching a quality control that is unworkable and unjust.

ICC made a wise choice appointing Bob Woolmer to nurture its fledglings, but it must do more, faster, to broaden cricket's top tier. The elitist argument has no future.

Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. His Asian View appears on Wisden.com every Friday. More Kamran Abbasi
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