Blogs Is This World Cup Tournament Format Fair?
March 20th, 2007 by prashantI know it might sound as if as an Indian Cricket fan I am looking for excuses for a possible quick exit by an Indian team from WC’07. But I am not talking just about India here. See what happened to Pakistan!! I am sure you will all agree with me that Pakistan would beat Ireland 99 out of 100 times. So, won’t you call this a fluke now that Ireland might be heading to the Super 8s while Pakistan is packing their bags to go back home? It is quite clear that if Ireland makes it to Super 8s, they will not win any more matches. Nor fair I say. Now in case of India, it was put in the same group as Bangladesh because at some point in time it was #7 or #8 team, but as per current form and ranking it is #5. Bangladesh is a test playing nation so according to ICC it is a “real” cricketing team. Bad deal for India….
There is no doubt that if Indian team played up to their potential they would be much superior to Bangladesh and if Bangladesh makes it to Super 8s they most likely will not win any more matches. So what is being achieved by setting a format in place whereby one upset is causing 2 really powerful sides to crash out of World Cup? I know as I write this, India is not totally out yet, but still facing elimination hinging on their match against Sri Lanka.
Now in my mind this is the most interesting part in this whole thing. When a team reaches super 8s, it will play 6 matches each before 4 teams get selected from 8, but only have 3 matches to get selected as one of the 2 teams from a group of 4. In the previous World Cups there used be a schedule where 2 teams played with each other twice in order to eliminate the luck/fluke factor and give opportunity for good teams to go thru to next level of competition. These are the teams that have been preparing for last 4 years for the World Cup and need to stay in it for it to be interesting.
Hope I am not coming across as some disgruntled fan but as someone who is genuinely unhappy about the tournament format.
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:41 am
Hmmmmm ….. the question is “do you ALWAYS want the best team to win?”. There is some amount of luck in any sport and whoever plays better on that day usually wins regardless of their track record. March Madness and NFL playoffs are so popular in the country mainly because of the excitement factor that comes from “one-and-done” format. Fans love cindarella stories. Compare that to the excitement factor of the best-of-7 series in the first round of the NBA playoffs, and we can quickly feel the difference.
From my perspective, I absolutely want India to win the World Cup and I am sorely disappointed at their loss to Bangladesh, BUT, the team did it to themselves and they deserved to lose that day. I actually like the format of the World Cup first round because despite that silly loss that should never have happened, India is STILL IN IT! GO INDIA!!!!!