Big debate: do cricket minnows deserve to play in the World Cup?

Ireland captain Trent Johnston and former England bowler Jonathan Agnew argue the toss on the issue
yes
Trent johnston
Captain, Ireland's World Cup team

Before we came out to the Caribbean people were saying that we didn't deserve to be here and we would be an embarrassment. Now we've reached this stage of the competition, they're saying we're going to be humiliated in the Super Eights.
I am not going to argue that we will cause more upsets in the vein of our victory over Pakistan; we know that we're playing the best guys in the world now but we have to be given some recognition for what we have achieved.
People are overlooking our performances in the tournament as a whole if we are being criticised for a lack of consistency. I don't think you can argue the win over Pakistan was a freak, one-off result. We had a hard-fought battle with Zimbabwe that ultimately ended in a tie and we beat Inzamam-ul-Haq's side fair and square. We actually put in a good performance against West Indies even though we lost. Admittedly we came up against Shivnarine Chanderpaul and we couldn't find an answer to him but we learnt from that. We also beat Canada in the warm-up games and lost by 35 runs to South Africa. I'm extremely proud of our guys.
Pakistan are undoubtedly a world power in cricket but they lost two of their group games - the other to West Indies - so they are out of the tournament. We deserve our spot in the Super Eights on merit. Sport is about competition - winning and losing. How can you justify taking that away?
We feel that the worst thing we can do now is go and perform badly and lose the momentum in these six games, starting against England. I'm 32 years old and I have learnt so much at this tournament, so it is obviously even more beneficial for some of our players who are only 20 or 21. To stop non-Test-playing nations such as ourselves competing at the World Cup would deny them the opportunity to improve. You have to play against the best.
Making our debut in the World Cup has given us a chance that we might not otherwise have had to show that we are competitive. We can play Scotland and Holland as often as we like but we are not going to maximise our potential that way. Those two countries would say the same. Scotland may have gone out but they learnt a huge amount from their experience of playing Australia and you cannot put a value on that.
We know that we're not suddenly going to be able to go and play Test series against Australia and South Africa but we need to get ourselves into a position - the political situation notwithstanding - where we can play teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
I'm not saying that will happen any time soon but our performances here have shown that we are competitive enough to do so, which is why it is so important to maintain our momentum in the Super Eights.
Surely part of the aim of the cricket World Cup is to encourage people to play the game - whichever country they are from. Cricket does not have a high profile in Ireland but, because of our success in reaching the latter stages, people who live in strongholds of Gaelic sport will be watching us take on England come Friday. That is fantastic in terms of promoting the game in Ireland and getting more people involved in cricket.


No
Jonathan Agnew
BBC cricket correspondent and former England bowler

I am simply being honest and reflecting what most people who come to a tournament with an impartial view want in saying that the World Cup should be a really memorable event. That means you need a standard of cricket that encourages people to take up the sport - the best teams should be competing against each other at this second stage. When it is beamed around the world into someone's living room, it should make them say, yes, that's a great sport, let's go out and play it, as happened after the Ashes 18 months ago. I don't want to see international cricket where games are tedious one-sided affairs played in empty grounds.
In one-day cricket with a white ball, dodgy pitches and unpredictable conditions out here, every dog will have its day. In a foreign clime some teams take longer to get into their stride and they are inevitably going to be embarrassed once in a while and that is what has happened.
India v Pakistan is one of the highlights of any cricket tournament. People who have bought tickets for the Super Eights match in Barbados will now see Bangladesh play Ireland. We have already seen three or four games with directors trying not to show swaths of empty seats. Four years ago, when Kenya got through to the Super Sixes, largely because of political issues, I went to the matches and there was almost no one there. India and Pakistan are the powerbases of the Asian game and it is not good for the promotion of cricket that they are out of the competition at such an early stage.
The smaller teams, the associate countries, are not good enough, consistently enough to make it worthwhile for them to be involved at this point. The presence of Bangladesh and Ireland means that it will take an outstanding set of results to prevent the four teams who took two points from the group stage from trundling through to the semi-finals. I certainly do not think Ireland will win another game, while Bangladesh will probably beat only the Irish. This means there are fewer teams who are capable of taking points off the likes of Australia and New Zealand. India and Pakistan would have presented a far more difficult task and provided a more open, compelling competition.
I am not trying to insult Ireland and Bangladesh. In fact, I hesitate before calling Bangladesh a minnow because they are better than that. I want everyone to be able to play cricket but they can do that in tournaments such as the Champions Trophy or Twenty20 competitions. The World Cup is the pinnacle of cricket and it should be the best possible shop window for the game.
That has not been the case at the past three World Cups. I really believe we should revert to a version of the 1992 format - a brilliant tournament - where every team simply played each other and the best four teams went through to the semi-finals. A good compromise, which would also reduce the time the World Cup takes, would be for the 10 Test-playing nations - provided Zimbabwe's political situation is resolved - and two qualifiers to all play each other to try to reach the last four.