Daily Times

LAHORE: Saw a nightmare last night that Pakistan doesn’t qualify for 2019 World Cup, and all the players are watching the event 4000 miles away from Lord’s on their television screen jealously.

Lord’s is the picture for the final match of 2019 World Cup featuring 10 teams. The 2019 Cricket World Cup will be hosted by England and Wales, from 30 May to 15 July 2019. This will be the 12th Cricket World Cup competition, and the fifth time it will be held in England and Wales, following the 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1999 World Cups.

Previous World Cup tournament of 2011 and 2015 featured 14 teams.The 10-team-tournament of 2019 has gained much criticism due to the lack of associate teams in the tournament, but the ICC plans to keep the competition at just 10 teams. It’s quite horrible for Pakistan.

The hosts England and other top seven teams in ICC rankings as of 30 September 2017 will earn an automatic qualification while the remaining two teams will have to play qualifying rounds in 2018. These qualifying rounds being played in Bangladesh will decide the remaining two spots.

Pakistan are stuck on number nine in ODI rankings with 86 points. It is the lowest ever rank for Pakistan since the introduction of ranking system back in 2001. They have a huge gap of 8 points with West Indies, who are on number eight with 94 points. This 8-points gap is very hard for Pakistan to catch up in one year with an upcoming arduous tour to Australia.

This critical position is the reason behind many nightmares. If Pakistan fails to qualify automatically, it will have to face merciless qualifier rounds, a format in which there’s no room for any error. Ten teams will fight in qualifying rounds for the remaining two berths in the World Cup. This is hard time not only for Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and Pakistan cricket’s fans but also for those who’ll suffer financially in the absence of Pakistan from World Cup.

The prime foundation for the forthcoming round robin World Cup tournament is the heavyweight teams playing profitable matches and above all Pakistan vs India takes place. Pakistan against India, undoubtedly are the most commercially valuable matches. The utmost desire or compulsion for Pakistan vs India dates back to March 2007.

The biggest upset of the cricket history that happened then was tournaments favourites not qualifying for group stage while lowest ranked Bangladesh and associate Ireland made their way to Super Eights. This upset made a huge loss to ICC in terms to generate revenue. ICC resolved the issue by fixing the draw and ensures that India vs Pakistan take place. This is the reason behind Pakistan playing India in group stage for the fifth time consecutively in upcoming champion trophy.

Now, this streak is endangered due to weak position of Pakistan in ranking. In 2015 World Cup, Pakistan were involved in the two most viewed matches of the tournaments, despite being eliminated in quarter finals.

In the absence of Pakistan, the 2019 World Cup will earn a huge loss for ICC as ticket sales and commercial deals for the tournament will be affected by one million British Pakistanis being less engaged in the tournament. This loss will still be less than those of ICC’s commercial contracts for 2015-23, that are the ultimate source of its revenue.

Hence the real commercial threat to ICC in the absence of Pakistan is not in 2019’s World Cup but later. Sponsors and Commercial partners would face loss with ‘no Pakistan’ and World Cup would become worthless for broadcasters and commercial partners. As per contract, they can’t step back from their agreements but would be less interested to invest in future events of ICC.

There are financial risks for Pakistan for too in the form of loosing World Cup participation fee that is no less than $1 million per nation. It may also lessen the attractiveness of Pakistan to commercial partners.

Along with financial crisis, is the cricketing perspective! Pakistan-less World Cup would be more hurtful than the next year’s West Indies-less Champions Trophy. Moreover, a tournament without Pakistan would miss something really essential and intrinsic to the cricket sport, as cricket has never seen a heavyweight team not taking part in an ICC event other than South Africa during apartheid.

There are possibilities of changing 2019 format by the end of 2017. Hence, Pakistan can still be a part of this tournament despite the awful position of its ODI team. The glorious Test team of Pakistan being ranked number one can be a fragile argument in this context. What so ever, a World Cup without Pakistan would never be that charming either for the fans or those who finance this sport.