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Mixed bag on minnows

Reuters, Johannesburg
Although the cricket World Cup still has three weeks to run, the debate over whether the minnow nations deserve a place in the big pool in the West Indies in 2007 has already begun.
The arguments are simple enough. Should cricket's pretensions to becoming a global game be given priority over consumer patience?
Canada, the Netherlands, Namibia and Kenya line up with the International Cricket Council (ICC) on one side of the argument.
Spectators and pundits frustrated with one-sided first-round matches are on the other.
Two teammates and their wildly contrasting contributions at South Africa 2003 personify the dilemma perfectly.
John Davison an off spinner and lower-order batsman for South Australia but who qualified for Canada after spending the first five weeks of his life there marched out at
Centurion against West Indies on February 23 and unexpectedly hammered the fastest century ever seen in a World Cup.
The 32-year-old, who reached his 67-ball mark with a six, could barely believe it. "It sent a shiver down my spine," he said.
Nor could the crowd and nor could West Indies captain Carl Hooper. His side recovered to win but Hooper spoke for the cricket public at large when he said: "When I woke up this morning the last thing I thought was that a Canadian would have batted like that."
That day, everyone loved the minnows. Opener Ishwar Maraj presented the other side of the coin in East London, with an innings almost as memorable for its tedium.
A tortoise to Davison's hare, he batted out Canada's full 50 overs against South Africa for 53 not out in a 118-run defeat.
Only Sunil Gavaskar, with 36 not out from 60 overs against England in the inaugural World Cup, has ever been more soporific.
If Davison set the tournament alight, Maraj did his best to douse the blaze with freezing water. Cricket's chiefs argue the lesser teams and that description must now include
Bangladesh after they extended their run of one-dayers without a win to 32 must be exposed to topclass competition to improve.
The critics, however, say that the World Cup is too big a forum to be devalued. Of the 40 games in the first round, 25 involved at least one minor side.
Of those 25, two ended in giantkillings, with Canada beating Bangladesh and Kenya beating Sri Lanka.
Former South Africa captain and Australia Test batsman Kepler Wessels argues the World Cup should be cut from 14 to eight teams.
"I think certainly a lot of these teams are out of their depth and I wonder how much it does for cricket," he says.
"There are too many matches that don't mean much."
Former Australia fast bowler Jeff Thomson agrees, arguing for a separate competition for smaller nations. "That would be better than us playing these obvious games where they're going to get their backsides kicked."
The ICC will point to Kenya's historic achievement in reaching the Super Sixes, even if they were helped by New Zealand's refusal to travel to Nairobi on security grounds.
The critics point instead to Canada's dismissal for a world record 36 against Sri Lanka Sanath Jayasuriya's side needed 28 balls of their 50 batting overs to win that game or Namibia's 256-run rout, another world record margin, against Australia.
Senegal launched last year's football World Cup by beating defending champions France 1-0. Cricket can only dream of such drama.