ICC's duty to find ten of the best for 2015

The final of the 2011 World Cup will be an intriguing contest between two of the hosts, India and Sri Lanka.

While the players are preparing for the ultimate test, the game's leading administrators are also in Mumbai to discuss this World Cup and decide how they will finalise the ten teams who will contest the next edition of the event in Australia and New Zealand in 2015. The contest in the boardroom will be as hard fought as that on the grass of Wankhede Stadium, and will undoubtedly have longer term repercussions than the result of Saturday's match.

The decision to reduce the 2015 event to ten teams is cast in stone. However, how these ten teams are selected will say much for how the ICC have reacted to both the public reaction to their initial decision, and the performance of the four non-Test teams at this years event.

There has been a lot of emphasis placed on the importance of the four Associates taking part in the tournament, and they have brought some excitement and unpredictability to the event. For this, in 20 games between the Full Members and the Associates there has been only one victory and that due to the innings of his or anyone's lifetime by Kevin O'Brien in Ireland's defeat of England. Four other games could be classed as competitive with the rest ending in one-sided victories. Most disappointingly for those pushing the Associate cause, all four games against the lowest ranked Full Members in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe were lost, three convincingly.

However, it was not just the non-Test sides that suffered heavy losses. Bangladesh were dismissed twice for under 100, whilst Bangladesh, England, Zimbabwe and the West Indies all suffered defeats heavier than any of the four Associates. The non-Test sides all had competitive moments with the Irish the standout side. Beyond the four sides who have competed in this world cup there are sides such as Afghanistan and Scotland, and lower-ranked sides such as the UAE and Namibia, who will all fancy their chances of being one of the top Associate sides in four years time.

The ICC must have a qualification process ahead of the 2015 competition. For this to happen they must make a brave decision and not allow all their full members automatic entry. The lowest ranked countries in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe must be made to earn the right to compete by taking part in a qualification event with the best of the Associates. This qualifying event should also be scheduled as near to the start of the main event as possible to ensure the best sides at the time of the World Cup are taking part. This was palpably not the case this year as Afghanistan and Scotland showed far better form in 2010 than Canada, Kenya and the Netherlands.

The ICC has an opportunity to put meritocracy above history and membership categories and give all its members a chance to compete in 2015. A ten-team world cup is not ideal but it is reality.What must happen now is the ICC put a process in place to ensure it is the ten best teams that take part.

The other notable factor that will grab the administrator's attention this week has been the standard of umpiring in the competition and the use of the decision review system (DRS). There has been consistently poor decision making by a number of officials which have been corrected by the DRS. The system must be here to stay but it is still, and never will be perfect. The ICC has praised their system and the increasing percentage of decisions it now gets right because of the DRS. Their main concern however, needs to be the amount of decisions its elite umpires have got wrong. In one game between Pakistan and Canada five decisions were changed upon referral.

The 2011 world cup has been an excellent event with great cricket, upsets, memorable individual performances, controversy and the best two sides in the final. The final will be a fitting tribute to two of the games greatest players. Sachin Tendulkar and Muttiah Mularitharan will be making their last world cup appearances. Between them they have played 801 ODIs, with Tendulkar's 18,903 runs and Mularitharan's 534 wickets both records unlikely to be broken for a very long time, if ever. It would be fitting if one of these two has the major say in the result.