ICC risk a repeat of World Cup tedium

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Board members set to give the green light to an unchanged format for the 2011 tournament in Asia, writes Scyld Berry. More... A batsman is expected to learn from his mistakes and not play the wrong shot twice. Yet the unsatisfactory format of the last cricket World Cup is due to be approved for the next one when the International Cricket Council meet in Dubai this weekend, unless they have a late change of mind and revise their stroke. You could be forgiven for having expunged from memory everything about the World Cup earlier this year except Adam Gilchrist's 149 off 104 balls in the final, Mahela Jayawardene's century in the semi-final and Lasith Malinga's four wickets in four balls against South Africa. On-field events, that is. Plenty happened after England lost to New Zealand in St Lucia — on land and at sea, by day and by night, by the glass and the bottle — but all that wasn't part of the official schedule. The last World Cup was crammed with too many teams (16) and too many tedious mis-matches like Australia versus Scotland or Holland. It took 49 days, plus warm-ups, with some teams going a week without playing, as if anybody needed recovery time after playing Bermuda; and there was a teensy-weensy flaw in the format which allowed India and Pakistan, two former World Cup winners, to be eliminated because of one bad day in the qualifying round, which resulted in the two cuckoos of Bangladesh and Ireland joining the Super Eight nest. Yet, for all its drawbacks, this same format was approved by the chief executives of the various national boards when they met in South Africa last month and recommended it to the ICC board. The one difference is that the length of the World Cup in Asia in 2011 will be reduced from seven weeks to 36-38 days by staging two matches on some days, even though that will be difficult for broadcasters who have only one channel. A game could start in the morning in Bangladesh, followed by a day-nighter in Pakistan a time-zone or two later, but the games would still overlap if they went the full 50 overs a side. Quantity, as if we didn't know it already, is always the object of the exercise so far as cricket's administrators are concerned. But although the ICC are contracted to provide ESPN-Star with a minimum of 51 games, and would be liable to refund money if fewer matches were staged, it is not inevitable that quality should go out of the window. A significant development has also taken place since the chief executives met last month: the rugby World Cup has shown what a dramatic ingredient in a tournament quarter-final matches are. Only once in the nine previous cricket World Cups have quarter-finals been staged, in Asia in 1996, when the knock-out element produced some wonderful cricket: not admittedly from England, who plummeted to new depths when defeated by Sri Lanka, but from Brian Lara, who knocked out South Africa off his own bat, and from India and Pakistan, who had a tumultuous encounter in Bangalore. The chief executives studied five other options for the format of the next World Cup, but none was so persuasive as the following: there would be 14 teams, which would get rid of the two feeblest minnows like Bermuda but still leave it as a 'World' Cup; they would be split into two groups of seven, with each country playing six matches (enough to stop giants being knocked out, unlike last time when the qualifying round consisted of two matches per country); and the top four in each group would proceed to the quarter-finals, thus bringing the tournament to a prolonged climax. The total comes to 49 matches, and you might get away without refunding any money if you throw in an opening ceremony: it has to be held in Dhaka, and no doubt Bangladesh will go crazy in celebrating the biggest event in their sporting history. The World Cup will be spread over 15 venues in all, in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well. Another big item on the ICC agenda this weekend is what to do about Zimbabwe after the independent audit into their board's finances was submitted last week. The report is said to be much on the lines which everyone had expected, or feared, with all the misappropriations cunningly camouflaged and the country's hyper-inflation blurring the picture further. It will be a pleasant surprise if Heath Streak, the former captain and the best bowler Zimbabwe has ever had, gets paid the $32,000 (£15,600) he is owed.

[King]

ICC is one sport association that has no clue how to run international cricket. After the fiasco the WC'07 they still are sticking to the long uninteresting format. It's going to take quite a bit off the players running up and down across the sub continent.

[The Outsider]

At least the officials won't be allowed to finish a game in pitch dark given the presence of floodlights.