Safyaan Sharif, the Scotland bowler who took the final wicket in his team’s thrilling six-run ODI win over England, expressed his disappointment over Sunil Gavaskar’s view that the ICC are right in holding a 10-team World Cup.
Shariff sealed a memorable ODI win against England earlier this month when the 27-year-old trapped Mark Wood lbw in Edinburgh.
It was the first triumph for Scotland over their neighbours in any format and raised more questions whether the ICC have made the correct decision in restricting next year’s World Cup to just 10 sides.
Gavaskar argued that ‘one win does you make you good enough to play in the World Cup’ but Sharif disagrees with the Indian veteran.
“I read his comments as well and I disagree with him to be honest,” the medium pacer told Sport360. “The World Cup is meant to be played with different teams. If you want to have a 10-team World Cup, you might as well play the Champions Trophy as that is what it’s for. But for the World Cup, you need to have Associate teams playing top sides.
“Sachin Tendulkar tweeted saying that the game needs to grow. There will be players agreeing and people who disagree. But having a 10-team World Cup is not going to grow the game.”
He added: “To be honest, it’s disappointing as we proved around the world what Associate nations are capable of doing. This was the only opportunity we had since the World Cup Qualifier. We knew we had to deliver and there’s not much we can do to prove that we’re capable of playing. It just shows that Associate cricket is going onwards and upwards.”
