ICC confirms World Cup U-turn
Ireland among teams allowed chance to compete in 2015
Last Updated: June 28, 2011 3:54pm
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Ireland scored a huge win over England
The International Cricket Council have completed their U-turn on the 2015 World Cup by allowing four Associate nations to take part.
The ICC had announced their intention to keep the next tournament to just the 10 Test-playing nations following the protracted 2011 event in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India.
However, that decision brought huge criticism, particularly from Ireland, who enjoyed victory over England in the group stages.
And on day three of the ICC's annual meeting in Hong Kong it was confirmed that a decision had been made to reinstate the Associates for 2015.
"The ICC Executive Board opted to retain the 14-team format that was used at the highly successful and universally acclaimed ICC Cricket World Cup 2011," the governing body said in a statement.
Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom hailed the about-turn.
"The initial reaction is probably just one of relief to be honest with you, relief that we now have the opportunity to qualify for the World Cup and relief that we can now devote our energy to actually trying to qualify for it," he said.
"All we have now is the opportunity to qualify so we still have a lot of hard yards to run through.
"From the moment the decision was announced, a significant portion of the game's stakeholders said they felt the decision was completely wrong. There was such a massive weight of opinion, it would have been frankly a surprise if it hadn't been changed.
"That doesn't necessarily lessen the kudos that should go to the board for actually reversing the decision... I suppose it's a moment where it (the ICC) is not necessarily embracing its principles but re-embracing its principles."
