Kyle McCallan, the former Ireland international and record cap holder, is the latest to go on the attack against the International Cricket Council's treatment of Ireland.

The Waringstown all-rounder and now Ireland selector, who played 226 times until he retired from international cricket in 2009, says the ICC are treating Associate teams (those below the 10 Full Members) with contempt by restricting the next World Cup to 10 teams.

"It seems that every time Irish cricket does what they are asked to do, ICC put another hurdle in our way. How on earth they can decide even before this tournament started that the format is not right beggars belief," said McCallan, who is a member of the Sky Sports panel in London for the World Cup.

"I just hope the boys can achieve what they set out to achieve which is to reach the knock-out stages and pour scorn on what is a biased organisation which is really founded on self-interest.

"There is a huge degree of admiration for Ireland among the Sky commentators who agree with the players that beating a Full Member is no longer a shock.

"It's a huge pleasure to see how far the current squad have taken the game forward.

"When I played at the 2007 World Cup we rocked the world (beating Pakistan and Bangladesh) and people thought it was a one-generation team, but that has been proven wrong," added the former Ireland captain, who then gave his thoughts on just how far this squad can go in Australia and New Zealand.

"I don't want to take the group stages for granted because Zimbabwe could be dangerous, but beating Pakistan is well within our grasp.

"I'd just love to see us compete and if we are competitive in all the games I'm confident we will reach the quarter-finals. And wouldn't it be magnificent if we shocked someone and reached the semi-finals of the World Cup?"

McCallan said the call this week from former West Indian bowling great Michael Holding for Ireland to be given immediate Test status expressed a sea change and offered hope for the future.

"Hopefully we will no longer have to worry about qualifying for these major tournaments and perhaps playing some form of Test cricket, maybe a second tier, in the not too distant future," he added.

"The bottom line is if ICC is serious about taking us forward then it has to put us on equal funding with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and I think they will get a much more significant return on their investment than those two."

Meanwhile, Ireland left the Gold Coast earlier than planned yesterday, because of the inclement weather, and arrived in Brisbane in time to catch the end of the United Arab Emirates' first match. Ireland's next opponents on Wednesday lost by four wickets to Zimbabwe who joined South Africa, India and Ireland on one win each, but behind Ireland on run-rate.