Associate nations included in 2015 Cricket World Cup

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has reversed its decision on excluding Associate nations from the 2015 Cricket World Cup.
The event, to be held in Australia and New Zealand, will now comprise 14 teams including four Associates, the same number that competed in the 2011 tournament.
The decision to reinstate the Associates, which was taken on the third day of the ICC's annual conference in Hong Kong, is a reversal of the ICC's heavily criticised move to restrict the 2015 tournament to the Full Members.
However, the ICC has reduced the number of teams in the World Twenty20s in 2012 and 2014 from 16 to 12 (ten Full Members and two Associates).
The ICC also spelled out the qualification process it had announced for the 2019 World Cup; there will be ten teams in the tournament, with the top-eight ranked sides gaining automatic entry and the remaining two spots decided by a new qualification competition. Seen through to the logical process there would, for the first time in World Cup history, be the likelihood of a full member nation being eliminated from the competition before its start.
The decision to exclude Associates from the 2015 edition was made shortly after the 2011 World Cup final. It sparked a wave of protests, especially since Ireland, who are the leading Associate team, had performed creditably in the competition, upsetting England and competing in most of their other games.
The decision was welcomed by a "delighted" Warren Deutrom, the Cricket Ireland Chief Executive.
Deutrom told ESPNcricinfo "the board should be greatly commended in the first instance for agreeing to look again at the matter, and then for being courageous enough to review their original decision - that isn't easy.
"As for Ireland, we now have to get our heads down and try to qualify for it (the 2015 World Cup)!" The Associates' delight may not be shared by the hosts Australia and New Zealand, who supported a shorter, sharper format. By cutting the tournament down to 10 teams, the Executive Board had hoped to repeat 1992's most appreciated World Cup format, in which all teams played each other once. Having the main teams playing nine matches each would have sustained interest and been television-friendly.