A More Meaningful Cricket World Cup

The one event all the fans of the cricket playing nations wait with bated breath. The one event which comes every 4 years. Yes, the 50-over World Cup of cricket. Currently, the 11^th edition of the World Cup is being played in the beautiful grounds and locations across Australia and New Zealand. 14 teams started the competition on 14^th February 2015, and one of these 14 will be crowned the World Champion on 29^th March on the historic ground of Melbourne, the MCG.

The format of the current tournament is similar to the one played 4 years back in the last edition in the Indian sub-continent. The teams have been divided into 2 pools of 7 teams each. Each team in a pool plays every other team and the top 4 teams from each pool proceed to play the knock-outs, consisting of 4 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals and 1 final. That makes a total of 49 matches to be played over a span of 44 days. The teams reaching the final have to play a total of 9 matches, and only then one of the 2 finalists is crowned as the winner. Comparing this to the FIFA world cup, the two teams which play the final have to play a total of 7 matches (including the final). By this data, a cricket world champion seems a more deserved champion of the world, playing and beating more number of teams than even the ‘Beautiful Game’s’ champion.

When we are talking about football and cricket world cups, we can look at some more basic data as well. Football world cup features 32 world-class teams which have qualified after beating a lot of teams in their respective confederations. These world cup qualifier games generally run for around 2.5-3 years eventually producing 8 pools of 4 teams each. These 32 teams vie for 16 spots in the pre-quarter-finals, with the winners advancing to play quarters, semis and the final. This whole event generally runs for around 30-35 days and is one of the most-watched and most-followed events in the world. Around 200 nations worldwide start their campaigns, the better of the lot keep advancing forward, and the best wins the Cup. There have been cases when even the best of the teams have failed to qualify for the mega-quadrennial event.

Coming to cricket, it’s a well-known fact the game is played by a handful of nations across the globe. There are many leagues and divisions in which these handful of teams compete in and eventually 4 out of around 20-25 teams gain the 4 spots available for Associate nations in the World Cup. For the 2015 edition, the 4 teams that made the cut are Ireland, Afghanistan, the UAE and Scotland. It is also known that traditionally there are around 7-8 teams only which are given any chance of winning the Cup (or even coming close to reaching the semi-finals). The cricketing super-powers are so strong that in most of the cases the Associate nations hardly stand a chance of creating a dent and making their presence felt, barring an upset or two sometime in the month-and-a-half-long tournament. Ireland is one team which has always created headlines in all the 3 World Cups it has been a part of (2007, 2011 and 2015). Apart from that, there are hardly any team whose name comes to mind when we talk about world cup success (Kenya in 2003 sprung a surprise, although it was mostly due to non-cricketing reasons than the cricketing ones). And quite frankly, the small lot of cricket fans like us around the globe care little about UAE defeating Scotland or Bermuda putting up a brave show against Ireland. No offense to any of the teams mentioned above.

In a World Cup, for which we wait for 4 years, we want to see meaningful matches and close contests. We don’t want an Australia putting up 400+ runs on the board against an Associate nation and then bowling them out and winning by 250 runs. This doesn’t do justice to the sport and certainly not to the morale of the Associate nation, whom the ICC wants so much as it looks to expand the reach of the sport. We want matches in a World Cup between evenly-poised teams. And we want a good number of these matches, not just 7 (4 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals and 1 final). The format for the World Cup should be such that the nation which comes out as the Champion should have beaten most of the world-class teams in its wake and emerges as THE team to beat in the world of Cricket.

A Solution In Sight?

There have been many calls during the past few months on overhauling the format of the competition for the 2019 World Cup and include just 10 teams. Equally strong have been the voices which have sternly opposed this idea by voicing their concerns for more international exposure to the Associate nations for the ultimate betterment of the sport. At the end of the day, ICC has to propose a solution which takes care of both the concerns in world cricket today. One, the ultimate championship should feature meaningful games, and two, the Associate nations and other smaller cricketing powers should get more exposure on the international platform for them to develop. The question is how do we accomplish this task.

I don’t think we need to look too far away for a probable solution and football and FIFA, once again, can serve as a benchmark for cricket and ICC to make the World Cup more relevant. We can start by dividing the cricket playing nations (big or small) in zones or confederations. Currently we have around 10 Full Members of ICC in cricket which can be said that they compete on equal footing when they meet. Given this, we can have 5 confederations and ensure that 2 of these 10 teams are in each confederation. So, we can have something like the following:

1. Oceania: (Full Members) Australia, New Zealand
2. South and East Asia: (Full Members) Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
3. Central Asia and Sub-Continent: (Full Members) India, Pakistan
4. Africa: (Full Members) South Africa, Zimbabwe
5. Atlantic: (Full Members) England, the West Indies

Each of the above confederations can be divided into 2 tiers or divisions, one main league and a feeder league. Based on the geographical location of a country, it would be put in one of the 5 confederations listed above and play the other teams in the same confederation. The main league of the confederation which will serve as the World Cup qualifier will constitute of 6 teams (2 full members as listed above and 4 Associate nations). The top 4 teams of the feeder league will join the 2 full members and play the qualifier games for the World Cup. In other words, say in the Oceania confederation there are 10 teams in the feeder league (or Division 2). These teams will compete against one another and the top 4 teams will qualify to meet Australia and New Zealand for the Oceania World Cup Qualification Championship. Finally, the top 2 teams from the Confederation World Cup Championship will eventually play the World Cup finals. This is essentially on the same lines as FIFA World Cup Qualifiers and Finals and it solves one of the 2 problems of Cricket currently, that of Associate nations getting more exposure. The final round of Qualification matches can be evenly spread out by ICC and national cricket boards by making necessary adjustments in the international calendar.

Coming to the 2^nd problem plaguing the Cricket World Cup, that of more meaningful matches to be played between equally matched side, we can have a look at the 1992 World Cup. This was played in Australia and New Zealand and was won, deservedly, by Pakistan. Most of us know these details, but something which we don’t know much is the format of the 1992 World Cup. This edition initially featured 8 teams and they were slated to play each other during the course of the tournament, thus totaling to 28 games in the group stage. South Africa was later inducted in the World Cup after the nation freed herself from Apartheid and hence the World Cup featured 9 teams which were supposed to play each other (36 group stage games). The important thing to note is that this World Cup did not divide the teams in Pools and each nation was supposed to play the other at least once. This same format can be inducted in the next World Cup along with the above Confederation system.

The top 2 teams from each Confederation will make a total of 10 teams qualified to play the quadrennial event. These 10 teams can be pitted against each other, thus ensuring each nation plays the other in the 1^st round (round-robin). The top 4 teams from this round will qualify for the next round and the rest 6 will be eliminated. In the format which is being followed in the IPL for the knockouts, the teams placed 1^st and 2^nd will play a qualifier (Q1), with the winner earning a place in the Final. The teams ranked 3^rd and 4^th will play an eliminator (E1), with the loser bowing out of the tournament and the winner to meet the losing team of Q1 (the match being called qualifier 2, Q2). The winner of Q2 will meet the team already in the Final and the winner of the Final will be crowned the World Champions.

The total number of matches in this particular tournament will be 49 (45 matches in the 1^st round, Q1, E1, Q2, Final), the same as the current edition of World Cup being played in Australia and New Zealand (42 matches in group stage, 4 QFs, 2 SFs and Final). The foremost benefit of this new method will be to the audience and fans who will get to see meaningful contests between top teams, who have made the cut after a rigorous Confederation Qualification championship games.

And as is the norm, more interesting games for the fans means more revenues to the host countries, the organizers, the media and ICC.

The Cricket World Cup has seen a lot of changes in the format since 1987. It is high time we try to concretize our way this grand event is conducted. As cricket slowly becomes more global, the number of teams in the Confederations can be increased and we can re-look our strategy for our two issues: One, to keep the World Cup interesting, and two, give Associate nations more exposure to international level action. Hopefully, ICC and national boards will take some steps in this direction soon.

Nishant Sinha

Comments are welcome.
Twitter: @NishantSinha88