England will be glad to see the back of them, Ricky Ponting never wanted them in the first place and now they are all eliminated from the World Cup, and probably for at least eight years. The Associate countries have nevertheless contributed to the 2011 tournament even if only one of them actually beat one of the Test-playing nations.
With the exception of Andy Flower and his charges, Ireland made lots of friends in recent weeks. Kevin O'Brien's sensational innings sparked that remarkable three-wicket victory over England in Bangalore two weeks ago and Paul Stirling's rapid century clinched an entertaining triumph over the Netherlands this week, but the Irish also scored more than 200 against the might of India and West Indies and gave Bangladesh a game, too. They can feel hard done-by if they are effectively excluded from the next World Cup just as they are showing what they can do at the top table. If they developed some top-class bowlers, too, they would be at least the equals of Zimbabwe.
When the Dutch pushed England all the way in Week One, expectations of more success were raised. However, Peter Borren's side failed to register a single victory. Not for want of effort. I picked Ryan Ten Doeschate as one to watch for the competition and his two centuries took him to more than 300 runs in the group stage, a great achievement and more than were compiled by the likes of Shane Watson, Hashim Amla and Tillikeratne Dilshan. They could yet prove that the future is orange but only at Twenty20.
Canada started out as cannon fodder....... but they went on to produce some better performances, led by runs from skipper Ashish Bagai and Amarbir Hansra. Teenage opener Hiral Patel also attacked world-class bowlers Tait and Lee this week, taking the Aussie pacemen for a 45-ball 54, albeit in an ultimately lost cause. For Kenya, Collins Obuya has already hit as many sixes as the much-vaunted Watson and with the Zimbabwe game to come, has already scored 242 runs at an average of more than 60. However, it looks likely that the Kenyans will exit without a victory, having succumbed to Canada and their Africa-born 'quick' Henry Osunde.
As I indicated earlier, what lets the World Cup minnows down is the lack of consistent quality bowlers. Credit must go to Canada's Harvir Baidwan, whose 13 victims put him near the top of the wicket-taking table, ahead of Lee, Swann and Murali. However, his wickets proved relatively expensive in terms of economy, and this was the case for all the Associates' bowling. They just didn't have the pace, guile, nous or maybe just the experience at this level to tie up or bowl out superior batting line-ups.
Nevertheless I applaud the contribution made to the tournament of all the aforementioned nations. Next week may see the start of the 'real' World Cup, as the top eight go head to head in the knockout format, but let's not forget how the likes of O'Brien, Obuya and Ten Doeschate lit up the competition while many were moaning that they didn't deserve to be even on the pitch.
