The International Cricket Council’s showpiece event, the Cricket World Cup, recently got off to a flying start in Australia and New Zealand, with strong performances and big crowds on display in the first week of matches.
However, despite the tournament’s positive start, many critics have questioned the length of the tournament – 47 days in total – and one has to wonder whether the current momentum can last all the way through to the end of March for the MCG final.
Forty-nine matches are played across the 47 days of the World Cup, roughly one per day. In a tournament with 14 participating teams, being hosted by two cricket-mad countries with plenty of suitable cricket venues, this seems awfully drawn out.
Given cricket games can be played during the day and at night, there’s no reason at least two matches can’t be played per day, which is one way to shorten the length of the tournament significantly and maintain interest.
Another issue with the current format is the number of teams who advance through the group stages. Currently, the World Cup teams are pooled into two groups of seven. Four teams in each group advance to the knockout stages, which means that more than half the teams in the tournament advance.
The problem with this is that the group stage matches become less meaningful. If a team loses a game or two unexpectedly, they can still make it through with two or three wins out of six games. For me, this sets a very low standard in a tournament that is supposed to be cut throat.
The ICC seem to have heeded the calls for a shortened tournament, with the 2019 World Cup to be reduced to 10 teams and to last for about a month. This is a move in the right direction in terms of length, but reducing the number of teams competing is a backwards move that could hurt the development of cricket.
One of the highlights of the World Cup is watching smaller cricketing countries we wouldn’t normally get to see mixing it with the big boys. For many, the most exciting part of this year’s tournament so far was Ireland’s shock win over the much more fancied Test side in the West Indies. Reducing the tournament to 10 teams drastically hinders the opportunities for developing cricket nations.
So how do we fix the problem and make the World Cup shorter and more interesting?
I suggest we increase the amount of teams taking part from 14 to 16. We could have 16 teams pooled into four groups of four teams, with the top two from each advancing to a quarter-finals knockout stage. Each side would play just three games in the group stage, meaning each match is vital to a team’s chances of progressing. Thirty matches would be played in total, and the tournament could easily wrap up inside a month.
The only barrier to getting this format approved would be that it creates the possibility of a big team like India or England being eliminated after just three games. The ICC would be strongly opposed to this, as they receive a lot of advertising money through strong TV viewership from these countries. So the ICC wants to see them play as many games as possible, hence the current format where teams play six group stage matches.
At the end of the day it’s going to come down to what the ICC value more, the integrity of the game, or the almighty dollar. Unfortunately, some would say they’ve already made that decision.
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