T20 World Cup 2021: "I have become a fan of PNG for the kind of passion they have shown here" - Sir Clive Lloyd

The qualifiers and first-round matches of ICC T20 World Cup 2021 have been quite going well. In the meantime, we have witnessed a couple of close encounters like South Africa and Pakistan's warm-up match and a few more.

However, Sri Clive Lloyd, the former skipper of the West Indies cricket team has come up with a statement ahead of the mega-event. He wants the International Cricket Council (ICC) to include the "A" teams of the heavyweight with the other eight teams who were battling the other for the remaining four spots.

In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda, Sir Clive Lloyd said "I have become a fan of PNG for the kind of passion they have shown here.

The more associate member nations are able to play the big teams – like in this case, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, some of these teams – they will improve leaps and bounds. So the ICC should consider at least to have ‘A’ teams of the big countries play these associate member countries that much more." 

"ICC could have thought of adding Bangladesh and Sri Lanka directly" - Sir Clive Lloyd

Besides, some of the big teams like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been troubled by Scotland and Namibia. Bangladesh lost their first fixture in the world cup qualifiers against Scotland with a margin of 6 runs.

The debutants Namibia has made the Sri Lankan lions struggle and removed their top-order for just 11 runs before losing the match against them.

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Besides, the former world cup winning captain suggested to ICC that they can directly include both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the Super 12 league.

"Maybe the ICC could have thought of adding Bangladesh and Sri Lanka directly and gotten two more associate member countries here, sort of rejigging the format a little bit.

Because clearly, you are seeing, more and more associate member countries are getting exposure, the standard of cricket is high – Scotland, Ireland, PNG, Oman playing extremely good cricket – and that will only augur well."

"Because Oman at the Al Amerat Stadium had 3000 people, new stadium, so clearly new constituencies of crowds and spectators are coming into the game as a result of the fact that they are playing the game at the highest level. So there is a thought for the ICC there, how to utilise this momentum and I am absolutely delighted with all of this," he concluded.