Mommsen believes the 2019 World Cup qualifying tournament should be held in England
Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo
Scotland captain Preston Mommsen has urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to change the way teams have to qualify for the 2019 World Cup.
Mommsen believes that the qualifying tournament for the World Cup should be held in the same country as the event itself.
As of now, the top eight ODI teams will automatically qualify for the 2019 World Cup in England, while the teams below will face each other in a qualifying tournament in Bangladesh in 2018.
To Mommsen, this doesn’t make any sense, especially considering that the conditions in Bangladesh and England are completely different.
“If you’re having a World Cup in a particular country, I think that qualifying tournament needs to be in that country,” Mommsen said. “There’s huge alarm bells ringing about the 50-over World Cup coming up, and the qualifying tournament’s quite conveniently held in Bangladesh when the World Cup is in England. So that makes absolutely no sense at all, and that seriously needs to be readdressed before that tournament takes place.”
Meanwhile, Mommsen also slammed the format of the World Twenty20, saying that teams that have already qualified for the competition should not have to go through another qualifying round to reach the Super 10 stage of the tournament.
“I think if you’re having a qualifying tournament for a World Cup, then it needs to be a qualifying tournament, not a qualifying tournament for another qualifier,” he said after his side failed to progress to the main draw of the World Twenty20. “I think that’s unfair. Within this qualifier [in India] we’ve played against two teams that we’ve played in the qualifying tournament. So that doesn’t really make logical sense.
“If you’re talking specifically about Twenty20, I think the qualifying tournament that we held in Scotland and Ireland was brilliant. I think it showed off the Associates, showed the skill that was on display, and I think TV numbers were pretty good for that, social media numbers were pretty good for that, and so I think that was a very good event. However, the qualifiers need to go straight into [the World T20 main draw]. If it needs to be a 16-team tournament, then so be it.”
Mommsen has been a long-time supporter of the campaign for Associate nations to play Full Member teams on a more regular basis. However, the 28-year-old was less than impressed when commentator Harsha Bhogle seemed to disagree with him.
“You can either moan about how little you have or you can make the most of whatever you have. For the hungry, opportunity resides everywhere,” Bhogle said via Twitter.
Responding to Bhogle’s remarks, Mommsen said: “I was incredibly surprised when I saw that tweet by Harsha. I admire Harsha as one of the great commentators of the game. I think he has a responsibility as an ambassador for the game to ensure that he is promoting the right things within the game, and I was deeply offended by what he was trying to say.
“He was trying to be over-philosophical about things, and I think other cricketers around the world have been offended by that. I don’t want to make this about that. We have exchanged messages and I think he’s trying to say that he was implying something else. I’m not sure how much I buy that though.”
Scotland ended their World Twenty20 campaign on a high as they beat Hong Kong by eight wickets via the Duckworth-Lewis method to earn their first-ever win at an ICC global event.
“It’s a very good feeling,” he said. “Bittersweet in many ways, the way this campaign has gone, but at the end of the day we’ve crossed the line for the first time and it’s a very important moment for Scottish cricket, and we’ll take a huge amount from today. Monkey off the back, and yeah, time to look forward.”
Despite their World Twenty20 campaign having come to an end, Mommsen promised that Scotland will return stronger than ever.
“As I’ve said, it’s a momentous occasion, this is a huge step forward for us, and hopefully we’ve gained some more followers back home in Scotland through this campaign,” he said. “Hopefully the exposure’s been there. Regrettably we’re not going further, and having another month on TV is huge, that’s invaluable. We will lose out there. However, hopefully we’ve done enough to gain some more support back home to encourage a few more kids, the next generation, and hopefully people have bought into us.
“But as I’ve said previously, Scottish cricket is in a very strong position, and we’ve got a very good squad. Unfortunately we couldn’t deliver on the park through this campaign but we have shown glimpses of what we’re capable of, and we’ll keep fighting over the next 12 months, the next 24 months, we’ll keep fighting.
“I’ll tell you what, we are hungry, that’s what I think we are, and we’ll keep being hungry whenever we get an opportunity.”