Associate members take centre stage

The strongest of cricket's second tier of nations will be battling for the chance to join the big boys when the ICC Six Nations Challenge gets underway in the United Arab Emirates this Sunday (Feb 29). The winners will qualify for September's ICC Champions Trophy, where they will face Australia and New Zealand in the first round.

The week-long tournament will include three teams that took part in the 2003 World Cup - Canada, Holland and Namibia - and three that didn't, in Scotland, the United States and the UAE.

The tournament is a 50-over round-robin format, with matches in Sharjah and Dubai before the final on March 6. In the opening games Canada play the United Arab Emirates, Holland meet Scotland, and Namibia face the USA.

The tournament is part of the ICC's high-performance programme for the leading associate countries. "We are seeing a high standard of cricket being played in a number of countries outside the elite level," said Bob Woolmer, the ICC's High Performance Manager. "The performances of the associate-level countries at the World Cup were highly encouraging, and this tournament provides another platform on which they can show their progress as well as giving them the essential international competition needed to allow them to continue to improve."