[al Furqaan]

From 2015 onwards, the 50-over world cup will be limited to only the best 10 teams. In order to assure the Associate nations, who would undoubtedly be incensed by such elitism, the ICC has stated that Associate teams will have a shot at qualifying for the world cup.

What does this mean and is it likely to work?

The answer to that lies squarely on the shoulder of Bangladesh and Bangladesh alone. Indeed, the fate of Associate cricket lies in the Bay of Bengal.

At the moment, Bangladesh sit on 66 points in the official ICC ratings, 9th place, and just fractions away from the West Indies. Not terribly long ago, we had zero points and were placed 11th place, behind non-Test-playing Kenya. Bangladesh's rise to halfway to the top, in terms of points, has been slow and gradual, consuming nearly 7 years.

As such, it is highly possible for Bangladesh to jump into the top 8 for the forseeable future, as an enourmous tussel with the West Indies is likely to develop. Indeed, any player strike, even short term, on the part of the Windies may be enough to give Bangladesh a sizeable buffer.

Similarily, New Zealand's current form indicates that they will be hard pressed to win matches outside of the comforts of home. Currently, NZ has a 25 point advantage over us, but that is gap that can be closed by 2015.

What this means is that it possible in the near future for 2 historically top sides to be ranked lower than Bangladesh and for at least one of them to fall into the situation of having to qualify for the World Cup alongside teh associates.

It is not difficult to imagine that this will not go down well with the boards involved, and the remaining power brokers in the ICC (namely the BCCI, CA, and ECB) will do well to realize that the coming decade may see them in the same situation.

Thus I'm not so sure that the ICC can hold onto this elitist concept of "top 8 teams qualify, everyone else needs to fight". This is inherently a design meant to keep Bangladesh out, and fortunately for us, we are on the verge of crashing the party.

The hopes and success of the Associates depends on Bangladesh.