The Dead-Rubber WC?

[King Cricket]

Other than that, then ICC can and must offer more to the Associates. Maybe invite them over to another country for a bilateral or tri-series, to bolster their confidence. That way, they can improve. Or a rule that each Test naton must at least play an Associate 3 times in a year.

That's the point I made as well. Today's match is a good example of why the Associates should be a part of the World Cup. They have potential to perform and unsettle top teams, just that their vitality needs to be funelled into the right channels, and ICC, as the supreme body of cricket, should contribute more to the process. A WC without the minnows will amount to throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Well to make game popular in associate countries they have to do well, just playing them wont make a difference.

Yes, but one needs to consider the fact that they play the top teams only once in every four years. In view of the limited opportunities and exposure they get, I don't think their performance has been too bad. As the Canadian coach was saying, they had all the plans in place against Sri Lanka, just that, despite the team being laden with talent, they lacked a guy who could effectively execute them since none of his boys had any experience of playing cricket at such a competitive level, and this is what made the difference between two teams. For the Associates to do well, the ICC has to be a little more active. Not everything is their fault.

 

[Papa_Smurf]

Exactly. Having teams like Netherlands or Ireland, who are clearly progressing, to keep on playing the same weak teams in League Division 1 and so on is not doing anyone any favours. Nor is letting them only have a go agaisnt the big guns once every 4 years.

The game needs to spread. And the ICC are doing a sh!te job promoting and developing it.

 

[aussie1st]

12 teams could be a possibility. Plus, we still have 4 more years to go and the likes of RTD playing in the IPL may bring about a re-think at the ICC.

12 teams sounds alright, there should be some qualification process for the teams that don't make the quarter finals in this world cup. That means 4 spots where the associate nations could fill instead of the 2.

 

[darthlewis1]

This WC is definetely to long and dragged out, they should at least have two matches per day for the group stages, as long as the big matches don't clash why not?

 

[pcfan123]

one match a day is killing me. need at least one day and one night match each day to space it across the world's time zones. Right now I wake up early (8am) just to catch the last 20 overs of the 2nd innings of night games

 

[aussie1st]

I could understand if it was the big teams playing but it has been all against the minnows so you may as well combine some of them up to avoid having days of these one sided matches.

 

[icyman]

This WC is definetely to long and dragged out, they should at least have two matches per day for the group stages, as long as the big matches don't clash why not?

one match a day is killing me. need at least one day and one night match each day to space it across the world's time zones. Right now I wake up early (8am) just to catch the last 20 overs of the 2nd innings of night games

The reason being the logistics will prove to be a huge challenge in that case.
Grounds of Delhi, Mumbai ,Bangalore.Kolkata and Chennai have very few matches and they have an international airport.

The other grounds are in the Tier 2 cities of India- Ahmedabad,Mohali and Nagpur,the grounds are way out of the city and thus transporting players could be a problem for the ICC as they would have to bear complaints of player fatigue,etc etc.

Secondly, players have to also travel to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,where the grounds too are out of the city.

Two matches a day- packing and unpacking will create troubles for most of the players. Thus, I assume that the ICC isn't keen on having 2 matches per day.

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Exactly. Having teams like Netherlands or Ireland, who are clearly progressing, to keep on playing the same weak teams in League Division 1 and so on is not doing anyone any favours. Nor is letting them only have a go agaisnt the big guns once every 4 years.

4 day Test matches with Bangladesh,Kenya and the 'A' teams of other major countries could improve their records.
When the ICC mentions that ODI status will be given to the Associates for the next 4 years, it really has to chalk out a proper plan. Include them in the FTP too.

For e.g, A tour to England can have a tri-nation tournament where either Ireland or Nederlands is the third team.

Also, to some extent, one needs to blame the boards of the Associate nations as well. They can have their own tournaments and could invite over a couple of nations.

There used to be the Sahara Cup in Toronto with India and Pakistan playing each other. Canada too could have been a part of such a tour.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I would just like to point out for everyone saying Netherlands are progressing way above the other associate nations.

In the world cricket league last year we (scotland) came second, and if it is to be a 12 team world cup, it would likely be us and ireland that progressed as that's who is in the qualifying match.

secondly, it was afghanistan that came 3rd with holland 4th. One good performance doesn't make holland all of a sudden the next big thing in associates, what it does show is that there is more depth in the associates than people give credit for.

16 team world cup with 4 groups of 4 as a first round is the way to go imo. 4 team groups are never over until the last match and poor performances can be compensated for.

 

[sohum]

All the World Cup formats do just that. The soccer world cup is known for big name teams exiting in the group stages. Rugby has the same format, just the big guns get the job done.

The difference being that the difference in teams in soccer is a lot less than in cricket and there are a lot more teams playing soccer than cricket. Also the 2007 format blows because one upset in an opening round, before a team has gotten into rhythm, means that you end up with a absolute ton of uncontested games in the Super 8 stage.

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Fair point. The main problem is the number of games the minnows are playing against the big guns which more times than not leads to a massive thrashing. 5 games is too many, 3 would be the ideal amount.

How are you championing the 2007 format, then? In that case if a minnow happened to cause an upset in the first round, they would end up playing 7 games, of which they probably would lose all the other games (other than the upset).

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I don't know if this is the right place to post this but I figured that it is related to scheduling.

Is there only one match per day during the week? If so, that is ridiculous! No wonder this tournament is going for so long. There should be AT LEAST two matches per day. What if one is a blowout? Like Sri Lanka vs Canada or England vs Netherlands. Neither match really grabs the attention of the tournament, so have two and give the viewers a bit more choice.

Yeah, completely agree with this. It seems like an unnecessary lengthening of the WC to only have one game per day.

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16 team world cup with 4 groups of 4 as a first round is the way to go imo. 4 team groups are never over until the last match and poor performances can be compensated for.

Sorry, I can't agree with that. I would rather see a World Cup where the top team has to have played well against all the other top teams to win. With a 4-team opening round, one upset completely unsettles the table and creates a bunch of useless games in the upcoming rounds.

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Honestly, there are not enough good teams in cricket for associate nations to be consistently competitive over the length of a tournament. I would prefer to take more competitive games rather than one fairy-tale upset, followed by a team getting hammered over and over again in the rounds that actually count.

Take a look at it historically. The only "minnow" teams recently that went into the deep stages of the World Cup were Kenya and Zimbabwe in 2003 and Sri Lanka (arguably) in 1996. Kenya and Zimbabwe qualified largely because England and New Zealand did not play games scheduled there due to security concerns. Sri Lanka was still an up and coming nation and they played some really good cricket to win the 1996 edition. But the point to take is that the 50-over World Cup has never really seen a fairy-tale story where a team progresses deep into the tournament because the format of the game is such that weaker teams will get shown out over the course of the game.

All the suggestions about short first rounds that allow for upsets are applicable for the T20 WC, where an underwhelming team could conceivably get on a bit of a streak and cause a few upsets.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

"Sorry, I can't agree with that. I would rather see a World Cup where the top team has to have played well against all the other top teams to win. With a 4-team opening round, one upset completely unsettles the table and creates a bunch of useless games in the upcoming rounds."

here's the thing. we can't have it both ways.

we either have a safety net for big teams in case they fail, which if they don't need creates useless games at the end of that stage.

Or we dispense with the safety net so every game counts, hence losing it puts a big team out.

I do not see the point in all the teams just playing each other in round robin, then going into a semi final situation, where the 4th best team in the league can win it. it also creates dead rubbers for the best teams as they secure a top 4 place. Am i the only one that remembers how dross the super 8 stage in the last world cup was?

16 teams, the 14 here plus scotland and afghanistan (i.e. all of world cricket league 1) 4 groups of 4.

top 2 disperse in 2 more groups of 4.

top 2 go into semi finals and then finals.

teams play each other mostly, but also avoid meeting each other in consecutive stages. Associates get 3 games, which is enough but not overkill, plus one of them will be against another associate for bragging rights. should one pull off a big result, they only get another 3 games so it's not like 2007 where ireland were stuck in the super 8s for 6 games. big teams have to make every game count as you don't just play for progression you play for an easier group or opponent.

 

[shravi]

Have only watched one match live so far. Awful timings. I wish there were more day matches (they start at 8pm). Day-nighters start at 1am.

 

[icyman]

Have only watched one match live so far. Awful timings. I wish there were more day matches (they start at 8pm). Day-nighters start at 1am.

The timings sucked for us back in India when the Cup was in the West Indies. For you, it may be worse when the Cup goes Down Under in 2015.

 

[shravi]

The timings sucked for us back in India when the Cup was in the West Indies. For you, it may be worse when the Cup goes Down Under in 2015.

No, that will be ideal. Both West Indies and Down Under will be just perfect.

 

[pcfan123]

Have only watched one match live so far. Awful timings. I wish there were more day matches (they start at 8pm). Day-nighters start at 1am.

its even worse here, not sure but day ones are around 10-11pm and night ones around 3-4 am

usually done by the time I wake up too, I just catch the last 10 overs if lucky.

Perhaps when the games start going 100 overs I'll catch most of the 2nd innngs, the associates being bundled out is not helping.

 

[aussie1st]

The difference being that the difference in teams in soccer is a lot less than in cricket and there are a lot more teams playing soccer than cricket. Also the 2007 format blows because one upset in an opening round, before a team has gotten into rhythm, means that you end up with a absolute ton of uncontested games in the Super 8 stage.

This is the World Cup you are meant to be ready to go from the first match. If you have not been preparing to be at your peak come the first game of the World Cup, then tough luck. If you give those top teams 6 games against the minnows then I'm sure France wouldn't have gone out early in 2002, they would have been able to get into rhythm same goes for Italy in the 2010 WC. Also Rugby is very similar in the top nations to minnows, you don't see them trying to give 6 games against those same teams. They understand upsets happen and if you aren't good enough to beat the minnows then you deserve to go.

How are you championing the 2007 format, then? In that case if a minnow happened to cause an upset in the first round, they would end up playing 7 games, of which they probably would lose all the other games (other than the upset).

The same way you are campaigning for the 2003 WC. That same WC which featured 2 minnows in the next round, one which was thrashed and the other which reached the semi on the back of beating only Zimbabwe in the Super 6s. I'm not saying the 07 format is perfect, get rid of the Super 8s and put in a Quarter final and you get rid of the problem of the underdog team playing 7 games unless they plan on winning the WC which is great. The 07 format does not guarantee more than 3 matches to a minnow, this WC does.