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 11th 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 14th February 2015, and one of these 14
will be crowned the World Champion on 29th 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:
- Oceania: (Full Members) Australia, New Zealand
- South and East Asia: (Full Members) Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
- Central Asia and Sub-Continent: (Full Members) India, Pakistan
- Africa: (Full Members) South Africa, Zimbabwe
- 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 2nd 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 1st 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 1st and 2nd will play
a qualifier (Q1), with the winner earning a place in the Final. The teams
ranked 3rd and 4th 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 1st 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
Twitter: @NishantSinha88
No comments:
Post a Comment