More torture for ODI cricket watchers

The 2007 World Cup lasted nearly 1.5 months and involved 16 teams. It is common knowledge and opinion that the tournament was really and got boring far too often for one that was touted as the ICC's flagship tournament.

At least the ICC is doing something about the format for the 2011 World Cup.

But when it comes to a 'much-ado-about-nothing' tournament, nothing beats the Asia Cup. Beginning tomorrow, the cream of Asian cricket (6 teams) will feature in the tournament, over a span of 2 weeks. The tournament is eagerly expected to be very tightly fought with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and UAE in one group while Hong Kong, India and Pakistan are in the other group.

I'm fairly sure that the organizers reckon that there is always the likelihood of an upset by UAE or Hong Kong which could throw up a surprise 2nd round lineup. But I'd reckon the chances of that are lesser than the probability that the ICC will wake up to its responsibilities, or indeed the likelihood that someone will clarify why the BCCI announces decisions on ICL players playing in the Champions League when Cricket Australia is supposed to be drawing up the rules!

Instead of getting the tournament done and dusted with as soon as possible by having the top 2 qualifiers from each group play in the semi finals, spectators & viewers will undergo the torture of watching these 4 teams play in a league. The schedule doesn't make it immediately apparent, but it seems like the top 2 from that league play in the final.

It gets even more sickening when you realize that 3 out of the 6 teams were playing in a triangular barely 10 days ago. So the organizers could have just had one single tournament, the Asia Cup, and donated some money to the Bangladesh Cricket Board instead of having the triangular tournament there!

Yet another case of ODI cricket digging its own grave.

Labels: asia cup, bangladesh, hong kong, india, minnows, odi, pakistan, scheduling, sri lanka, uae