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A matter of format
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The 2003 World Cup has been a financial success, so the International Cricket Council is happy. But for much of the tournament there has been an overwhelming feeling that all is not well. Not because so-called big countries have been knocked out - that’s the appeal of the event - but because too many games have failed to grab the imagination. A World Cup should be almost nonstop thrills and spills. At this one the excitement has been limited.
Most people agree that the format needs to change. There have been too many matches which have attracted little interest, and the supposed excitement of the Super Sixes just didn’t materialise, largely as a result of a flawed points system.
There are certain things that the ICC will insist on. There cannot be a serious reduction in the number of games - there would have been 54 this time round but for politics - because television pays the money and television demands a product. There can be no reduction in the number of countries, because the ICC is determined to expand the global reach of the game.
Taking these non-negotiables into account, we have come up with the following suggestion for the next tournament:
16 teams split into four groups of four. The sides will be seeded to ensure that the balance of the groups is fair. As they do with the football World Cup, the seedings would ensure that all the top sides avoid each other. Each country then plays three games, with the group winners going straight through to the Super Sixes.
The four sides finishing second in each group play off against each other in a straight knockout (ie runner-up in group A plays runner-up in group B, and C v D) to decide the remaining Super Six places.
The sides in the Super Sixes then all play each other, starting afresh with no points carried forward. The semi-finalists are decided as they are now.
The result of this would be a net reduction of ten matches, but this would be more than compensated by an increase in the number of games that really matter. The ICC needs to understand that just occasionally less is more. It would also make the tournament shorter or allow for the inclusion of reserve days.
The reduced groups would make most of the matches important. There would still be some grotesquely one-sided games, but that is the price of expanding the reach of the tournament. The smaller countries might complain that they get to play fewer games, but that is a price worth paying. While including them in the World Cup is important, overexposure does them little good and is also commercially unappealing.
The playoffs between the runners-up would add to the excitement and, importantly, give the television companies a focus of interest early in the tournament. The danger might be that some big teams are eliminated early, but that should be the very appeal of the World Cup.
So complex are the internal politics of the ICC, and so self-interested are many of the members, that change may be far from easy to achieve. But the fact is that India getting to final has saved this tournament from slipping into obscurity. That shouldn’t be an excuse for the men charged with the wellbeing of the game to pretend that all is well.
http://www.wisden.com/misc/subs/page.asp?colid=44121519
What do you think?
I liked this idea but only thing is group matches will be totally meaningles.
I mean every group will have 2 quality team and 2 non-test playing type team then its pretty obvious who will go next…
