The ICC have launched their newest competition, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League, but it has already come in for criticism from Sky Sports Cricket commentators Ian Ward and Michael Atherton for being too complicated and unnecessary.

The Super League will start on July 30, with England’s three-match ODI series against Ireland also serving as the first three games of the new tournament. Ward, after explaining how the competition will work, wondered why the ICC didn’t just use the current method they have for comparing teams.

“It’s the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League, I think I’ve got that right!” said Ward on Sky Sports Cricket. “Because they’re trying to put some sort of context onto these games and it’s all to do with qualifying for the next World Cup.

“So 13 teams in it, 12 full members plus the Netherlands. Each team plays three ODIs against eight of the other 12 teams. If you win you get 10 points. Hosts India and the next seven highest-placed teams will qualify automatically. The five sides failing to qualify automatically will join the five Associate nations and they will play the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier, and two teams from that qualifier will make it into the 10-team World Cup. What a mouthful that is! Why don’t they just do it on the rankings?”

Atherton laughed, and agreed the system seemed “incredibly complex”.

“Now there’s always logic to these things, and Andrew [Strauss] is sat on the ICC Cricket Committee and he will know about this in more detail than I do,” said Atherton. “There is always logic in everything that happens, but what tends to happen is that it’s incredibly complex because what you’re trying to do is fit two systems together.

“You’ve got the ICC global events – World Cup, World T20, and what was the Champions Trophy – and you’re trying to marry that with the usual bilateral series in what’s called the Future Tours Programme where every team plays against each other. Trying to mix those two together is incredibly difficult, and you end up with this.

“Try explaining this to the man on the street, try explaining the World Test Championship to the man on the street, which we find it hard enough to understand and we work in the damn game, and then try explaining that to the man on the street. What you’ve really got to try and get is something that’s less complex and a bit more straightforward in order for people to understand.”

Strauss agreed that something less complicated would be preferable, but felt that this was a good compromise, and pointed out how the ICC seem to come in for criticism no matter what they do.

“It makes complete sense to try and find something more straightforward but it’s not possible,” he said. “We all talk about meaningless bilateral cricket that doesn’t have any context, and then the ICC try and put together the World Test Championship and everyone goes ‘the points system is too complicated’ and then they try the Super League and they say ‘Why are they doing that?’ They’re damned if they do, they’re damned if they don’t.”