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Michael Yardy is confident England can regain their focus to take a 4-0 lead over Australia

Brydon Coverdale29-Jun-2010Michael Yardy is confident England can regain their focus to take a 4-0 lead over Australia after they were perhaps the only Englishmen celebrating in Manchester on Sunday night. While the rest of the city was commiserating over a rotten line call and an early World Cup exit, Yardy and his colleagues were basking in a series triumph that they hope will become a clean-sweep over the next week.”When you win a series it’s important that you celebrate,” Yardy said at The Oval ahead of Wednesday’s fourth match. “I don’t think it went out of hand. But the main focus is on trying to get 4-0 and move on from there. We’ve got to win this game at The Oval. We’ve had three very good games, and a tight one in the last game.”Yardy believes there are still areas in which England can improve, especially given the nerve-racking finish at Old Trafford, where they collapsed and nearly lost a match they had dominated. The bowlers have done well to maintain the pressure on an experienced Australian batting line-up, and through the middle overs that has largely been down to the spin duo of Yardy and Graeme Swann.Swann won the rewards on Sunday, with four wickets and a Man-of-the-Match award, but the Australians have also struggled to get on top of Yardy’s left-armers. It is an interesting role for Yardy, who barely bowls at first-class level but has sent down more overs than any other England player so far this series.”It is strange but I think it just shows the different forms of the game and how very different they are,” Yardy said. “Graeme Swann has made himself probably the best spinner in the world at the moment. His stats don’t lie. He’s been the leading wicket taker or right up there in every series he’s played of one-day cricket, Twenty20 or Test match cricket.”That’s why he deserves the plaudits, because he’s taking the wickets. It’s great to bowl with him because at the moment he’s an attacking spinner. I always ask him what he thinks of the pitch and the opposition and what to do in certain situations. He’s very helpful with that. He’s got a very positive outlook, which rubs off on everyone, especially me.”England have appeared bright and confident over the past week, and it has shown through in their style of play. The challenge is to maintain that attitude now that the series has been decided, and Yardy said it was too early yet to be talking about a possible whitewash.”It’s important that we keep the momentum going and confidence going in this game and not look too far ahead,” he said. “It’s been a great series win but I don’t think we’re finished.”

An overwhelming majority of Australian cricketers believe players will turn down central contracts in order to position themselves as Twenty20 “freelancers”

Alex Brown22-Dec-2009An overwhelming majority of Australian cricketers believe players will turn down central contracts in order to position themselves as Twenty20 “freelancers” in the coming seasons, prompting the Australian Cricketers’ Association chief Paul Marsh to describe the issue as “one of the biggest cricket has faced.” The findings, published in the ACA’s annual survey of national and state cricketers, also revealed almost a quarter of Cricket Australia’s 25-man contract list would consider declining future offers from the national board to expand their playing options.Asked whether they envisaged Australian players following the freelance path taken by Andrew Flintoff earlier this year, 67% of surveyed cricketers responded in the affirmative. Of those, 22% of CA contracted players said they would consider making such a move now, with another 39% stating they were unsure. No players had considered the move previously.A reduction in touring commitments, greater earning potential, fewer physical demands and the avoidance of scheduling conflicts with the IPL were among the factors players said would be taken into consideration when deciding whether to pursue freelance careers. Almost half the cricketers surveyed said they were open to the idea of early retirement to pursue careers in the IPL, with another 30% listed as unsure.But not all was doom and gloom for national boards. In a promising development for the game’s traditional employers, the prestige of representing Australia was rated by both state and national players as the factor that would most weigh on their minds when deciding whether to play as a freelancer, indicating that the lure of IPL riches has not entirely replaced that of the baggy green cap in the hearts, minds and pockets of Australia’s cricketers.”The reality is that the boards no longer have a monopoly over the players’ services,” Marsh told Cricinfo. “There are new and lucrative options available to players and not surprisingly many around the world are giving serious consideration to their futures. Our players are well paid, but a competition such as the IPL in many cases provides more money for less work. That’s a proposition most people would accept in a heartbeat.”As such I think the issue of freelancing will be one of the biggest that cricket has faced. I hope, for the game’s sake, we can find a solution that doesn’t see players choosing IPL over international cricket. The survey reinforces that our players still have a desire to play international cricket so in order to retain them, those running the game must firstly ensure that the scheduling of international cricket doesn’t conflict with events such as the IPL. Secondly, a period of player leave must be factored into the schedule so that players can play international cricket and IPL as well as having an annual break to allow their bodies to recover and so they can spend time with their families.”Saturation scheduling was highlighted as the greatest concern held by players in the poll. Only 18 % of CA contracted players said they supported the Future Tours Programme in its current format, with 78% voting for a world championship Test model. Entering the final stages of a 2009 campaign in which Australia were scheduled to play 13 Tests, 39 one-day internationals and nine Twenty20 matches across seven countries, only 29% of CA contracted players felt the current scheduling mix was appropriate – down from 43% last year.Almost 80% of Australia’s elite players felt too many ODIs were being scheduled – more than double the figure from 2008 – and most felt bi-lateral 50-over series should be restricted to five games. The management of players’ workloads by resting them from selected 50- and 20-over matches proved most unpopular – 86 % were against the ploy.To alleviate the issues of over-scheduling and IPL conflicts, Marsh called upon administrators to include nine-week annual windows in the new FTP, which will run from 2012 to 2020. He also implored boards to grant players an additional annual leave period to reduce the risk of player burn-out.”We believe these windows must be provided if the international game is to retain its elite players,” he said. “The ICC and its member boards need to accept that less international cricket will need to be scheduled moving forward. The opportunity for these boards is to make each game of international cricket more valuable and we strongly believe greater context is the answer. In our view international cricket desperately needs context in the form of global Test, ODI and T20 championships so that every game has meaning amongst players and fans.”

Like the massive Highveld thunderstorms in this part of the world, the pre-series atmosphere is thick with anticipation at Centurion

Andrew McGlashan at Centurion15-Dec-2009Like the massive Highveld thunderstorms in this part of the world, the pre-series atmosphere is thick with anticipation at Centurion, with Andrew Strauss calling on his team to use controlled aggression against South Africa when the contest finally gets underway on Wednesday morning.The mood from the visiting camp in recent days has been one of quiet intent, fuelled by a determination not to back away from the challenge as the hosts aim to use their home advantage and pace attack to intimidate England. They have been careful not to get drawn into any pre-series battles with South Africa, but when the duel begins on the field, Strauss will make sure his charges stand toe-to-toe with the opposition.”I’m keen for players to stand up and be counted in pressure situations and if you aren’t willing to do that you won’t survive very long in Test cricket,” he told reporters on the eve of the match. “But it has to be done with thoughtfulness and be done smartly, there’s no point in getting carried away. It needs to be calculated and controlled.”There has been a lot of waiting around for the players in the past fortnight, which has added to the eagerness for the action to finally begin. It feels a long time ago that England took a decisive 2-1 lead in the penultimate match of the ODI series in Port Elizabeth, whereupon it rained for a week in Durban before England travelled to East London for a low-key Test build-up.”Leading up to this Test, both sides have had 10 days or so twiddling their thumbs and waiting for tomorrow to come about,” Strauss said. “There will be 22 players pretty keen to make their mark early in the series and as is often the case the first day and first session can have a big bearing on where the series goes. We all know you aren’t going to win a Test in the first session, but you can grab the momentum in the match.”England managed to get three-and-half days’ cricket at East London and had another centre-wicket session at the High Performance centre in Pretoria on Monday. Quite how ready the team is to face a side that, until two weeks ago, were ranked No. 1 in the Test world will only become clear in the next few days, but Strauss is comfortable with the preparations.”I think you are prepared if you are mentally in the right place,” he said. “We learnt that by going back to India after the bombings and I think because we’ve had quite a big gap between the one-dayers and the Tests we’ve had enough time to prepare ourselves mentally.”We haven’t had a four-day game, so in terms of replicating a Test match we haven’t had that, but I’m comfortable with where are at. The mood is pretty boisterous and happy. We are conscious we need to have our game on tomorrow – you can’t afford to ease into any Test series, but certainly if you haven’t played for a while.”This will be England’s first Test since they regained the Ashes at The Oval in August, but unlike 2005 when they lost their focus, Strauss is adamant there won’t be any lingering on past glories.”The post-Ashes glow went in that one-day series against Australia to be honest,” he said. “I think we are all eager to return to Test cricket, it allows us to reconnect with what happened in the Ashes and think about what went well and what didn’t. That’s a healthy thing for us, but it’s a very different set of circumstances. We can’t afford to look back too much.”Both Makhaya Ntini and Graeme Smith have pinpointed the post-Ashes retirement of Andrew Flintoff as a problem for England, but Strauss believes he has the players to cause South Africa plenty of problems and is quite happy if the opposition are lulled into a false sense of security.”We are obviously going to miss a guy of that quality and the balance of the side is affected,” Strauss said. “But as for him being the only player who can intimidate South Africa, if they feel that, then I think that’s a good thing for us because we have some very good cricketers who can surprise them over the coming weeks.”As usual Strauss will wait until the morning of the Test to reveal his line-up – although he is confident over the fitness of both James Anderson and Graeme Swann – and was cautious when assessing a very green surface 24 hours before the game was due to start. If the surface remains heavily grassed in the morning Ian Bell will certainly be in contention, but Strauss is aware conditions can change over five days.”I’m still not 100% sure how the wicket will play,” he said. “We turned up to one of the one-dayers in the Champions Trophy and the wicket didn’t look very good but ended up playing pretty well. Certainly at this stage there looks like there is quite a lot of green grass on it but we’ve still got all three options available to use and I think we’d be quite hesitant to name our side prior to tomorrow morning – even to our players – because these sorts of wickets can change quite a lot overnight.”

Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rinku Singh played support roles as India drew level 1-1 in the T20I series, with three games still to play

Karthik Krishnaswamy07-Jul-2024
India’s first step into a new era of T20 cricket began with a stumble on Saturday, but they dusted themselves off well and truly to close out the weekend with a portentous win headlined by their most futuristic player. Abhishek Sharma, who lit up IPL 2024 with his incandescent, all-intent displays at the top of the order, gave international cricket its first glimpse of his ability on Sunday, taking Zimbabwe apart with a 46-ball century, the joint third-fastest by an India batter in T20Is.Related

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That effort led India to 234 for 2 – their second-highest T20I total away from home – and left Zimbabwe needing to pull off their highest successful chase – they had only once hauled down a target above 199. They didn’t get anywhere near close, as India’s vastly superior bowling attack made full use of a two-paced pitch while defending a total that was well above-par. The margin of victory – exactly 100 runs – perfectly summed up the contest.

A deceptive start

On Saturday, Zimbabwe had opened the bowling with Brian Bennett, deploying his offspin against India’s left-hand debutant, and that had brought a first-over wicket-maiden with Abhishek out for a duck. The same match-up kicked off the second T20I after India opted to bat, and Abhishek got off the mark in international cricket off the first legal ball he faced, pulling it for six.It was a sign of what was to come, but it also wasn’t. International cricket isn’t necessarily a standard than the IPL, but it can be very, very different. This was a Harare pitch with a bit of spongy bounce and seam early on, and Zimbabwe’s attack used it well in the powerplay to keep India to 36 for 1.Shubman Gill fell in the second over, chipping Blessing Muzarabani straight to mid-on, and the towering quick was Zimbabwe’s best bowler in the early stages, troubling Ruturaj Gaikwad in particular with his lift and movement in the corridor. Abhishek took time coming to grips with the conditions too, and at one point was batting on 27 off 23 balls.Then he looked to clear his front leg and hit Luke Jongwe’s nibbly medium-pace over the top, and miscued it high in the air over the mid-off region. Wellington Masakadza got under it, and put it down.Abhishek Sharma’s savours the feeling of getting to a maiden international ton•Associated Press

Abhi shakes the room

From that point on, Abhishek was unstoppable, clattering 72 runs in his last 23 balls at the crease, hitting five fours and seven sixes in that time. Suddenly, the conditions ceased to bother him. He was rocking back to marginally short balls and pulling with fierce power. He was stepping out and freeing his arms gloriously to loft over the covers. A modest Zimbabwe attack, suddenly, was looking like what it was.There was another drop along the way, Tendai Chatara running to his right from long-off and getting only the heel of his palm to a lofted drive off Sikandar Raza, when Abhishek was on 77 off 40. Zimbabwe were in the firing line, though, and with all the batting India had in the dugout – they had left out the left-arm quick Khaleel Ahmed and included an extra batter, handing Sai Sudharsan his T20I debut – he was taking nearly every ball on. Abhishek wasn’t worried about getting out – this is why he made such an impact in the IPL even though his longest innings of the season only lasted 28 balls – and on this day luck smiled on him.Along the way, he left a couple of bowlers nursing vivid bruises. Dion Myers’ slow-medium disappeared for 4, 6, 4, 6, 4 in the 11th over, the pick of the hits a monster pull that hit the roof beyond the leg-side boundary to bring up Abhishek’s fifty. Then Masakadza, unfortunate both to have dropped Abhishek and to be a purveyor of left-arm orthodox, went for 6, 6, 6 in the 14th over – the last of them a one-handed swipe over backward square leg that brought up Abhishek’s century – before a miscue off the next ball ended the onslaught.Abhishek Sharma and Ruturaj Gaikwad put on 137 off 76 for the second wicket•Associated Press

Gaikwad and Rinku pile it on

Or not, because Zimbabwe still had six overs to bowl and India were in the mood now. Gaikwad’s struggle against the conditions and the rust of playing his first competitive cricket since the IPL extended all the way until his 38th ball, when he brought up his fifty with a pulled four off Jongwe. He took Chatara apart in the next over, the 18th, hitting him for three fours and a six to eventually finish unbeaten on 77 off 47.India’s main source of end-overs carnage, however, was Rinku Singh, who had been unlucky to miss their World Cup campaign while boasting an average of 89 and a strike rate of 176.23 in 11 innings at the time the squad was announced. He was in his element here, promoted to No. 4 with the perfect entry point for his skills, slapping the sixth ball he faced for a charging six over the covers and finishing the innings with a four and back-to-back sixes off Jongwe, who ended with figures of 0 for 53 in four overs. Not what he may have anticipated when he induced Abhishek to miscue on 27.

Mukesh, Avesh and Bishnoi wrap it up

If Zimbabwe had any hope going into their chase, it lay in the composition of India’s attack. Having picked the extra batter, they were playing only four frontline bowlers, which left four overs to be completed by part-timers Abhishek and Riyan Parag.Abhishek isn’t a part-timer in domestic cricket, and has plenty of variations to go with his stock left-arm orthodox, but he discovered how difficult bowling in the powerplay in an international game can be, conceding 19 in the second over with Bennett in an aggressive mood. Bennett took hold of Mukesh Kumar in the next over as well, hitting him for a pair of massive back-to-back sixes – over square leg and then down the ground – but he fell next ball.Brian Bennett got Zimbabwe off to a flying start with 26 off 9 before being bowled by Mukesh Kumar•Associated Press

That was the second wicket Mukesh had taken with an in-ducker, after one in the first over to bowl Innocent Kaia through the gate. That sort of seam movement, with a bit of inconsistent bounce thrown in, was a defining feature of Zimbabwe’s powerplay: they scored 22 runs more than India did in that phase, thanks to Bennett’s aggression, but they lost four wickets to India’s one.One of these summed up how challenging the conditions still were: a bouncer from Avesh Khan skidding onto Sikandar Raza as he shaped to hook, forcing him to fend a catch off the glove to the keeper.Zimbabwe’s innings continued to flounder after the powerplay, with Ravi Bishnoi looking particularly unhittable – Johnathan Campbell, sweeping and reverse-sweeping with increasing desperation, failed to put bat on five successive balls from him, and bottom-edged the sixth into his body. Wessly Madhevere batted from the start of the chase all the way to the 17th over, and made 43 off 39 balls. Zimbabwe were eventually bowled out for 134 with eight balls remaining, with Mukesh and Avesh bagging three wickets apiece and Bishnoi finishing with 2 for 11 from his four overs.

Derbyshire opener hits 96 off 62 but Worcestershire win to stay on track for knockouts

ECB Reporters Network18-Aug-2023An exhilarating exhibition of strokeplay by Kashif Ali powered Worcestershire Rapids to a 62-run win over Derbyshire in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup match at Derby.Kashif plundered 88 off only 36 balls and dominated a fourth wicket stand of 119 from 56 with skipper Jake Libby who made 73.The 25-year-old hit seven sixes and eight fours after Rob Jones made 53 as the Rapids surged to 254 for 5 in a game reduced to 30 overs a side by rain.Luis Reece led Derbyshire’s pursuit with 96 off 64 balls but Pat Brown took 4 for 51 and Josh Baker 3 for 29 to seal victory with 29 balls to spare and keep the Rapids on course for the knock-out stages.Derbyshire collapsed to 192 all out but it was still a memorable day for seamer Harry Moore who at 16 years and 114 days became the youngest player to represent the county.The Rapids initially started slowly after Derbyshire elected to bowl and kept the visitors in check with disciplined seam bowling. Sam Conners set the tone by opening with a maiden and the pressure accounted for both openers in the first four overs.Ed Pollock was bowled pushing forward at Conners and when Gareth Roderick came down the pitch to Suranga Lakmal he edged a drive to slip.Moore’s first bowl in senior cricket was impressive as the tall right-arm seamer conceded only eight from three overs which helped restrict the Rapids to 50 from the first 10.The scoring rate increased against the spinners with Jones driving Alex Thomson over long-off for the first six of the innings and Libby repeated the shot in the offspinner’s next over which cost 17.Kashif Ali works leg-side•MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Jones reached his 50 from 45 balls but then pulled Luis Reece to long-on which ended a stand of 95 off 80 balls.But that only brought in Kashif who went into overdrive from the start, sweeping Mark Watt for six and dispatching Moore for another two maximums when the youngster returned to the attack. Kashif powered to his 50 with three consecutive fours off Conners before driving Watt for two more sixes.He was closing in on Worcestershire’s fastest-ever one-day hundred when he drove Conners to long-off and Libby followed in the next over, a skied pull giving Moore his first wicket.Ben Cox provided some late momentum with an unbeaten 22 off 11 balls to take his side past 250 but Derbyshire responded well to a challenging chase.Reece cleared the ropes twice in Matthew Waite’s second over and with Harry Came also timing the ball well, Derbyshire motored along at eight an over before Pat Brown broke through.Brown, who will be playing for Derbyshire next season, had Came caught at deep midwicket but Reece continued to tear into the bowling.After flicking Brown over backward square for six to reach 50 from 33 balls, he drove him for over long on for another maximum before hoisting Dillon Pennington high over the midwicket boundary.Tom Wood pulled Pennington to mid on but when Waite returned, Reece hit him for three fours as 17 came off the over.But Waite showed character by having Wayne Madsen caught at deep point and the dangerous Haider Ali lbw off the first two balls of his next over.Reece then fell to Brown as three wickets went down in five balls with Derbyshire losing their last eight wickets for 47 in seven overs.

Board official Dr Vince Adams is irked that ex-CEO is in line to get US $300,000 but players are still owed match fees

Peter Della Penna12-Jul-2022Dr Vince Adams, a member of the the USA Cricket Committee appointed in August 2020, has leveled scathing criticism at the board for its handling of recent financial and governance issues, including prioritising a payment of US $300,000 to ex-CEO Iain Higgins ahead of money owed to the national team players. Adams has fired off a series of emails in recent days, copies of which have been obtained by ESPNcricinfo, in which he has labeled the transition from the expelled USA Cricket Association to USA Cricket in 2018 as a “humungous [sic] mistake”.”It is a grave disappointment to those of us who spent over two years replacing USACA with USAC,” Adams wrote in an email on July 7 to USA Cricket operations director Richard Done in which the rest of the board of directors are also copied. “Even with so much less resources, USACA’s problems never came close to this dishonorable and unprincipled behavior of USAC’s leadership. The sad truth is that several members of the board and senior officials feel the same, but some would rather stay quiet, selfishly compromising themselves for small perks.”Adams, 72, is a former Guyana opening batter who made his first-class debut as a 19-year-old in 1969 in a side captained by Joe Solomon that also featured Alvin Kallicharran. He only played five first-class matches though, after injuries from a car accident derailed his career. He migrated to America a short time later and became an engineer, eventually obtaining a doctorate from the University of Tennessee. He has spent the last two decades as a senior government employee in Ohio working for the United States Department of Energy and is highly respected in the US Cricket community.Prior to being on the Cricket Committee of USAC, Adams was appointed by the ICC in 2016 to be a part of a “sustainable foundation” advisory group tasked with helping to streamline American cricket governance following USACA’s suspension in 2015. When USACA was expelled by the ICC in 2017, the sustainable advisory group’s chief task was to write the constitution for the new governing body that would take over.Adams’ email message comes after a lengthy thread in which Srini Salver, a former USA batter who currently serves as the male athlete rep on the board, sent a string of emails starting on June 30 questioning why a number of USA players are still yet to receive match fees despite competing in eight home ODIs in Texas played as part of ICC Cricket World Cup League Two from May 28 through June 15. Adams – who is a member of the cricket committee along with Salver, former USA men’s captain Sushil Nadkarni, former USA women’s player Nadia Gruny and former New Zealand international Jeff Crowe – then fired off the first wave of criticism at USA Cricket for their inactivity toward rectifying the player payments.”The habitual non-payment of players has been a major sore point for the [Cricket Committee], and we directed that it must be of the highest priority to ensure that players get their monies on time and must not be treated any way differently to USAC’s staff in this regard. We also directed all trips, matches, tournaments, etc., incurring these expenses, must not receive prior approval without the guaranteed available funds to cover these expenses. I recognise that this may be out of your control, but it is more than obvious that the CC’s decisions mean nothing!”Besides what appears to be the continued disparate treatment suffered by the players, this is a very basic principle of financial management, even in running cake-shop operations. So the clearly continued demonstration of incompetence and uncaring attitude towards the players by USAC’s management, are not only shocking, but also embarrassing and outright wrong!”The payment issues are the latest in a series of disputes over the handling of USA player central contracts. Not long after securing ODI status in April 2019, USA’s players became the highest paid in the Associate world that summer. USA Cricket touted in a press release that their highest central contract was in excess of $90,000. But by the summer of 2020, USA Cricket slashed every player’s salary by at least half, putting everyone on a flat $1800 per month pay rate citing the lack of matches and tight finances during the Covid-19 pandemic. USA’s international fixtures resumed in September 2021 and yet their players’ pay has not been restored to pre-pandemic levels.One email response from Salver, on July 7 following the message from Adams, highlights the $300,000 payment which the USA Cricket board has approved for Higgins, even though some USA players are yet to be paid their tour fees. This further enrages Adams, who then sends another email just hours later, saying that while a CEO should be paid what he has earned “whether it is $1 or $1 million”, he took issue with the process by which the payment was approved, and that it was prioritised over outstanding player fees.”The blatant pooh poohing of our own constitution is also a blatant disregard of the IRS 501C3 laws,” Adams writes, which relates to USA Cricket’s status as a non-profit corporation that allows it to be exempt from paying federal income tax. “It’s time for the IRS to be informed of the innumerable questions surrounding USAC’s failure to follow the rule of law, its conflict of interests, and dysfunctionality.”It obviously also demands that it is time for the public and the cricketing community to be made aware of these worrisome misgivings that affect them, so that they could hold the USAC board members accountable for their actions, especially now at these elections. It’s a burning shame that all of the guardrails we put in place to make USAC a model operation representative of the greatest country, are so brazenly being torn down by this board.”

The ICC will discuss facilitating ODI status for certain Associates during its meetings in Dubai that start on Thursday

Tristan Lavalette06-Apr-2022With their Women’s World Cup dreams dashed after the qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe in November was abandoned midway because of the newly detected Omicron variant, dejected Thailand players cried.Their batter Natthakan Chantham shared the pain through a social media post after the team was unable to progress to the 2022 Women’s World Cup. The reason behind not qualifying was Thailand not having ODI status even though they had beaten Full Members Zimbabwe and Bangladesh before the qualifying event was aborted.”The players were so disappointed,” Cricket Association of Thailand president Ravi Sehgal told ESPNcricinfo. “We should have been given a fair chance to qualify. We couldn’t qualify for the World Cup because we don’t have an ODI ranking as we have never had ODI status.”We have worked very hard to get our standard to this point with entirely ethnic Thai players. But we still need help.”Sehgal petitioned the ICC and board directors in December with an impassioned plea for Thailand to be granted ODI status. He didn’t get his wish but the issue is broadly set to be discussed during ICC meetings that start in Dubai on Thursday.The ICC is looking at facilitating ODI status for certain Associates wanting to pursue the 50-over format and provide them with additional funding, while re-examining World Cup qualification pathways for Associates. Currently, being a Full Member or qualifying for the ICC Women’s Championship is the only way to get ODI status.Last year the governing body awarded Test and ODI status for women’s teams of Full Members, but Thailand don’t have that because of the stunted growth of their men’s team (although both Afghanistan’s men’s and women’s team were given Full Member status despite there not being a functional Afghanistan Women team as such).”Our men’s development isn’t at the mark of our women’s, so we have focused on women who have done exceptionally well,” Sehgal said. “The women’s team will be more confident with more international matches, especially if they have opportunities to regularly play against the top ten countries.”Additionally, there was also brief confusion over which matches had ODI status. In September 2018, the ICC said for the purposes of simplification, all matches in tournaments – such as World Cup qualifiers – where some teams have ODI status and some don’t will be considered ODIs.Thailand and USA celebrated their ODI status during those qualifiers only for it to emerge later the qualifier matches that involved a non-ODI-status team were to be categorised as “other one-dayers”.”This issue is important because Associates who deserve ODI status should have it and I think in principle it should have widespread support,” said Sumod Damodar, who is an Associate Member representative on the Chief Executives’ Committee. “What happened to Thailand was disappointing. Did Thailand merit better treatment? Yes. They beat two Full Members. They should at least be given special dispensation to get ODI status.”Thailand, who memorably lit up the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup, were at the top of Pool B of the qualifiers when the event was called off as the Omicron variant spread through southern Africa leading to border closures and travel restrictions.With the tournament unable to be rescheduled, the three highest-ranked teams in the ODI rankings progressed to the World Cup and the next two got a place in an expanded ten-team Women’s Championship.