ICC Intercontinental Cup and Shield

The regional competitions were arranged so that each country played one home and two away matches although, in the end, Uganda were forced to relocate their fixture against Kenya to Nairobi because of concerns about the pitch in Kampala. Unease about the decision of the ICC to give the competition first-class status proved ill-founded as the players adjusted well to multi-day cricket with all matches apart from the final lasting three days and with six out of the 15 games ending in draws. Only one innings score over 400 was achieved and the lowest innings score was as high as 93. Canada’s John Davison entered the record books for his match return of 17 wickets for 137 against the USA, including an innings return of nine for 76. Ali Asad also took nine wickets in an innings (9-74) for the United Arab Emirates against Nepal but, otherwise, team and individual performances were not exceptional. There were eighteen instances of bowlers taking five or more wickets in an innings; Davison did it three times and Naseer Shaukat (Ireland) twice. Thirteen centuries were scored with Ravindu Shah’s 187 not out for Kenya against Namibia as the highest. Shah and Fraser Watts of Scotland were the only batsmen to make two centuries. One issue which arose, and which perhaps was not considered in the planning of the competition, was the availability of players. The withdrawal of Kenya’s leading African players in a dispute with the Kenyan Cricket Association was a one-off event, but it seriously weakened their side in two matches including the semi-final. More generally, the Canadians, the Dutch, the Scots, the Irish and, also, the Kenyans were not always able to field their strongest teams. Sometimes this was because of injury, on two occasions it was because the players concerned were getting married, but other times it was a result of players being unable to get leave from work. In Davison’s case, as a professional cricketer, he was needed to play for South Australia. It was unfortunate that the matches most affected were the semi-finals and final which ought to have been the highlights of the competition. Instead, Scotland easily had the better of the draw against Kenya to qualify for the final where they outclassed a Canadian side that became more demoralised as the game progressed. The captains quickly mastered the implications of the bonus points system. On several occasions the batting side preferred to declare rather than take advantage of the 90 overs allocated to the first innings in order to prevent their opponents from gaining further bonus points for bowling, particularly if they had already obtained their maximum six bonus points for batting. Such decisions were more important in the later stages of the league phase of the competition when bonus points were often critical as to which team would win the Group and qualify for the semi-finals. Scotland were the outstanding team, scoring an average of 40.96 for each wicket lost and conceding only 19.34 runs for each wicket obtained. Canada also performed well, reaching the final on merit, and it was unfortunate that they could not field their strongest team for the occasion. Kenya were clearly weakened by the loss of key players and were perhaps fortunate to head the Africa Group over Namibia. The latter, however, gave a surprisingly inept display when losing at home to Uganda. The United Arab Emirates were also fortunate to win the Asia Group which could so easily have gone to Nepal. Once these two teams had drawn the opening game in the group it came down to which one could obtain the most points in the matches against Malaysia. Namibia, Kenya and The Netherlands were seriously affected by their inability to bowl the opposition out cheaply. All conceded more than 30 runs for each wicket gained. In contrast, the United States and Malaysia were unable to score enough runs, making fewer than 20 for each wicket lost; in both cases their batting let down some strong performances by their bowlers. Bermuda were simply weak all round, averaging only 18.76 runs for each wicket and conceding 30.66. It is unlikely, however, that Denmark, Argentina or Germany, the countries unlucky not to qualify for the competition, would have performed any better. Overall, the competition probably did contain the twelve top Associate sides at the time and, apart from the very one-sided final, was a success. 14 ICC Intercontinental Cup 2004