ICC Intercontinental Cup and Shield

retrospectively recognised the match as first-class in November 1951. When the Canadians came to England in 1954, their three-day matches against first-class counties and the Pakistani tourists were rated first-class, almost certainly prematurely since the Canadians were outplayed, including an innings defeat by Pakistan who were making their first tour to England as a Full-Member country. Not surprisingly, no further internationals involving Canada were rated first-class. The 1960s saw the advance of East Africa, a combined team made up initially of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika (later to be Tanzania); Zambia became involved in the 1970s. Five first-class matches were played against visiting teams, namely South Africa (SACBOC), the MCC (twice), India and Warwickshire. Although they did not win any of the matches, they were by no means disgraced and, for a while, the prospect of Test status seemed a possibility. They were the obvious choice as the second non-Test-playing country after Sri Lanka to take part in the 1975 World Cup. Their weak performance there and a 115-run defeat by Sri Lanka in a three-day match at Taunton was enough to confirm that they were no longer first-class. That three-day game was their last first-class encounter. Kenya’s match against Pakistan B in September 1986 was somewhat surprisingly defined as first-class by the Pakistan Cricket Board but it was not until January 1998 that they played another first-class fixture, the match against England A who visited Kenya prior to a tour of Zimbabwe. Kenya enjoyed first-class status for several matches thereafter and took part in the West Indies first-class domestic competition for the Carib Beer Cup in 2004, drawing three and losing four of their matches, two of them by an innings. Fixtures against Pakistan A, India A and Zimbabwe A followed but, outside of the Intercontinental Cup, Kenya have not played a first-class game since October 2005. Bermuda’s one first-class match, excluding the Intercontinental Cup, came in 1972 when the New Zealand Cricket Board accorded the status to their fixture at the end of their tour of the West Indies. New Zealand had played Bermuda on their previous tour in 1965 and were held to a draw, largely because of Clarence Parfitt’s bowling; he took eight for 41 in New Zealand’s first innings. The reward was to upgrade the 1972 fixture to first-class but it was not warranted as New Zealand were easy victors by an innings and 31 runs, despite Parfitt’s return of five for 51. The most recent Associate country to take part in first-class cricket outside of the Intercontinental Cup is Namibia. Since 2006/07, they have participated in South Africa’s three-day domestic competition for amateur sides. Effectively, this is a second-tier first-class contest which was established to enable the provincial teams to continue in existence after the professional competition was formed by combining the provinces into six franchise teams. The amateur competition acts as a feeder of promising players to the professional ranks. After finishing second in the first season, Namibia have struggled since and only won three matches in four seasons. The evidence that the standard of cricket in the top Associate countries was high enough to grant the ICC Intercontinental Cup matches first-class status is not compelling. Of the countries taking part in the first competition in 2004 only Scotland, Ireland and Kenya were rated first-class and only Scotland and Ireland had maintained that status for any period of time. For most Associate countries, history shows that some were able to reach first-class standard for a short period but were unable to provide a continuous supply of top-class players to maintain it. Broadly, with the exception of Scotland and Ireland, none had managed to establish the necessary administrative structures, coaching and youth programmes continually to replace players as they became older and retired. One of the objectives of the Global Development Programme is to rectify this. For a country to be considered first-class, it might be expected that it should have a reasonable record in matches against other first-class teams. The records shown in the table are not impressive. Those for Scotland and Ireland largely reflect the matches against each other. As seen above, their success rates against English county sides are poor and, similarly, Kenya failed to beat any of the West Indian first-class teams. Namibia have won only 18% of their matches against South African sides. Only Philadelphia, at 32%, and Fiji, 33%, have won more than a quarter of their matches against first-class opposition. 5 Introduction