Five more days and the biggest ODI tournament is under way. The stadia are all ready (a far cry from last year's CWG!) and some warm-up games have been played. India won a thriller against Australia in a match that had a lot of wickets. India was bundled out for 214, which is not exactly respectable, but suddenly Piyush Chawla turned the game around, picking up four Australian wickets. South Africa won easily against Zimbabwe at Chennai, while New Zealand, Sri Lanka and West Indies also picked up wins.
This format is the same as the 1996 format, which I didn't know much about earlier because I wasn't born then. The teams are in two groups, decided by ranking, and they play all other teams in their group. The top four in each group qualify for the knockouts. This means there will be some mouthwatering clashes and some matches which could be anything but crowd-pullers.
Waugh has said SA are the favourites, and I think so too. Kapil Dev has said India has a very good chance, while Sourav Ganguly is playing safe by not declaring any clear favourites.
Some people say 14's too big a number, but I say it's not enough. Look at the FIFA World Cup. 32 teams, and is it boring or do we see empty stadiums? The FIFA World Cup is special - once every four years and one of the few times when national teams play each other really competitively. There are national cricket matches all the time, so...are we bored? Cricket has a lot to learn from football.
I don't like the Umpire Decision Review System. It gives cricket a very artificial feel. True, umpires are prone to error, but the UDRS is not neat and unobtrusive like the tennis Hawk-Eye.
This is a different World Cup in many ways. Will it be a new winner too?
This format is the same as the 1996 format, which I didn't know much about earlier because I wasn't born then. The teams are in two groups, decided by ranking, and they play all other teams in their group. The top four in each group qualify for the knockouts. This means there will be some mouthwatering clashes and some matches which could be anything but crowd-pullers.
Waugh has said SA are the favourites, and I think so too. Kapil Dev has said India has a very good chance, while Sourav Ganguly is playing safe by not declaring any clear favourites.
Some people say 14's too big a number, but I say it's not enough. Look at the FIFA World Cup. 32 teams, and is it boring or do we see empty stadiums? The FIFA World Cup is special - once every four years and one of the few times when national teams play each other really competitively. There are national cricket matches all the time, so...are we bored? Cricket has a lot to learn from football.
I don't like the Umpire Decision Review System. It gives cricket a very artificial feel. True, umpires are prone to error, but the UDRS is not neat and unobtrusive like the tennis Hawk-Eye.
This is a different World Cup in many ways. Will it be a new winner too?
The answer for not expanding to 32 teams is in your article itself - "not os mouthwatering clashes". Maybe a two tier system will help. in Soccer there is a wider number of teams worldwide to play the game competitively. Cricket will take some more time. I foresee USA and China teams, along with Afghanistan, in a few years.
ReplyDelete