espnstar.com's Rajarshi Gupta caught up with General Manager, Commercial, ICC, Campbell Jamieson in New Delhi.

At a glittering event at the Oberoi, Jamieson took time out to reflect on the positive vibes that the International Cricket Council has sent over the globe in terms of developing cricket as a game.

Speaking exclusively to espnstar.com, Jamieson sounded pleased with the magic the Afghanistan cricket team weaved recently in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier.

"Afghanistan are a great example of how seriously we have taken our development programme. We are reaching out to nations where cricket has never been a strong point and look how well they are doing," said a composed Jamieson.

The senior ICC official refused to buy the theory that associate nations when pitched against the more estabilshed nations are simply wasting their time.

"The Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland have qualified for the ICC World Twenty20 in England through rightful means. They have been high-performance associate nations and they do need to test their skills against the best in the world.

"One of the interesting things is that people want to watch these events. The ICC World Twenty20, we expect, would be a huge event and the most watched in the history of all cricket tournaments."

Jamieson has founded his theories on very solid ground. After all, it needed Ireland to oust Pakistan from the ICC Cricket World Cup in the West Indies in 2007 after Bangladesh had blown India's chances in the Caribbean islands.

A few months later, the Bangla tigers came back to relive their giant killer tag when they smoked the Windies out of the first edition of the ICC World Twenty20 in the league stages in South Africa with a convincing win.

Whoever said associate members cannot compete! At times, they do prove to be more than handful for the best in the business and that can only do wonders to their morale as newcomers on the biggest stage.

Sri Lanka, after all had been pushovers not many years back before they conquered the cricketing world in 1996 with an emphatic show against the mighty Australians at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

Jamieson was pleased with the rapid strides the latest and shortest format of the game has made.

"School cricket in England has mostly been about Twenty20. We are glad that there is now a third option besides Tests and ODI's."

Twenty20 cricket took the world by storm, two years back when the best teams in world fought a scintillating battle for the coveted trophy in South Africa, which eventually ended up with MS Dhoni and his boys.

Twenty20 is indeed a force to reckon with. Though former Australian coach John Buchanan went on record to say that the Aussies should have sent retired stars like Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and Matthew Hayden for the ICC World Twenty20 instead of their main Ashes players, Jamiseon said the Australians took their Twenty20 very seriously.

"I think the Aussies are very serious about their T20. In fact, not many years back before the Australians won the Champions Trophy in India, the media would say that the World Champions are not very serious about the ICC Champions trophy. They showed just how serious they were when they went on to actually win the tournament."

With the ICC World Twenty20 in England just a few days away, it would be a sight to behold when the Netherlands take on hosts England at the historic Lord's on June 5. Remember, in cricket, anything can happen.