And I think part of that is the fact the with so such regularity of series between the "Big 4" of Australia, England, India and Sth Africa that the others are suffering from a lack of high end competition. If your B and C list sides get more opportunities to play against your A list teams then they will continue to improve giving everyone better contests in the long term.

The ICC should be mandating that the Big 4 at the very least send A teams to tour associate nations as well as host them for significant tours where they play against several domestic 1st Class teams. Of course this would all mean investing in the worldwide expansion at grassroots level, but nobody wants to spend the money.