The next round of Cricket World Cup Cricket League Two was postponed by the ICC indefinitely as travel restrictions between the participating countries made the event impossible to hold in its original July date.
The upcoming series scheduled to take place between July 4 and 11 in Scotland was set to feature six one day internationals between the hosts, Nepal and Namibia.
Whilst the competition only sits at its midpoint, the six scheduled matches were crucial as Namibia sits one game behind Scotland on the hunt for the elusive third and final qualifying spot for the 2022 World Cup Qualifier. With Nepal also looking to add to its 2-2 record after just four matches.
For the Associate nations, the upside is these matches will be guaranteed to be played as part of the three-year-long qualification tournament.
Scottish captain Kyle Coetzer said to _Emerging Cricket’s_ Daniel Beswick in this week’s EC Live of Facebook that as a team Scotland just had to be best prepared for as soon as cricket is allowed to go ahead again.
“It’s disappointing obviously, those fixtures (being postponed), we’re not getting to play any of them at the moment”
“I guess the important thing for us will be to try and pull that together. So, when those games are put on our schedule and we know when they’re going to be; that we’re prepared best to play them” Coetzer said.
Perhaps the most exciting initiative the World Cup League possesses for Associate nations is the opportunity of guaranteed cricket.
The newly formed competition ensures that each participant plays 36 matches across the leagues three year period with the league creating fixtures security going forward for the world’s top associate sides.
| Team | M | W | L | PT | NRR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oman^^ | 10 | 8 | 2 | 16 | 0.177 |
| USA | 11 | 6 | 6 | 12 | -0.318 |
| Scotland | 8 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 0.139 |
| Namibia^ | 7 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 0.008 |
| UAE^ | 7 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 0.004 |
| Nepal | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0.982 |
| PNG | 8 | 0 | 8 | 0 | -0.458 |
“There is a silver lining (with the postponements) and hopefully we’ll get an extended run of cricket after it, when everyone is able to go outside” Coetzer told Beswick.
Though a proposed date has not been set, the three-year span of the competition gives the ICC plenty of opportunity to find a time period to reschedule the series of games between Scotland, Nepal and Namibia.
Oman currently sits top of the competition with 16 points from their ten matches whilst the USA sits in second on 12 points after eleven games.
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