Indian Cricketing Legend Sachin Tendulkar on February 22nd said that the ICC should reconsider its plan to reduce the World Cup to 10 teams and feels that the governing body should instead look to upgrade the skills of so-called minnows.
In ICC’s first ever ‘Google Hangout’ , Tendulkar said:
“When you want the game to globalize, we need to encourage more and more teams to participate, obviously not at the cost of dropping the standard of play but we need to look at how we can get these guys to raise their standard of playing and I think the standard of playing is only going to rise when they start playing against the top sides.
“For that sake, I feel even if the top sides send their A-teams, India A could tour Zimbabwe, Bangladesh or Ireland, Scotland and all these teams they need encouragement. For UAE say, Australia-A or New Zealand-A team can go and play with UAE get them that encouragement.”
Tendulkar, the global ambassador of ICC World Cup 2015, said that the associate nations should get more chances to play against the top-ranked teams so that they can get fully-prepared for the big tournaments.
“I think it’s important that the top teams, the stronger ones play against all these teams as much as possible and not just during the World Cups. To play against them every four years I think we need to look into it and look to encourage them more by making them play international games against top sides.