World Cup review - Part 1 - Australia, Bangladesh, England, India & Ireland

28 years ago, I was rudely woken up by relatives screaming "We have won the World Cup". It is quite likely that Saturday's final between India & Sri Lanka also ended around the same time as that game in 1983. I was well awake this time around!

I can't recall exactly when I started following cricket with a lot of interest, but I definitely recall watching games from the 1985 World Championship of Cricket in Australia keenly. I did watch at least 1 day's play of the India v Pakistan test at Chepauk in 1987 and definitely remember Azhar taking a blinder of a catch. I can't recollect if it was off a spinner (Maninder) or off a medium pacer (Raju Kulkarni), most likely the latter since I didn't bunk school, and the last day of the test was on a Sunday. The 1987 tied test at Chepauk enthralled me. A few months earlier, I had read an account of the final over of the Brisbane tied test. Around the same time that the India v Australia game was coming to an end, with India in a winning position (50-odd runs to get with 5 wickets in hand), I was at my music class, and wondered aloud if a tie was possible. Needless to say, I got thrashed when umpire Vikram Raju's finger went up.

Back to the present though. The final was an excellent exhibition of classy batting by Jayawardene, who I still believe to be over-rated in comparison to Sangakkara, nice partnerships (Sangakkara-Dilshan, Mahela-Samaraweera & Mahela-Kulasekara, Gambhir-Virat & Gambhir-Dhoni) and a fair amount of power-hitting at the end.

Now that the tournament has ended though, teams & individuals need to introspect into whether they have achieved what they set out to.

Australia needs to take a serious look at their approach to grooming spin bowlers. Under Ricky Ponting's captaincy (possibly because of his limitations when it came to playing spin bowling in tests), the only time he used "spin" with some degree of seriousness was when he was washing his clothes. They've never identified any sort of backup options for Shane Warne other than Stuart "watch-me-bowl-a-half-tracker" MacGill. They need to find at least 1 more young batsman to play alongside Watson, Clarke & Ponting. It is rare for Aussie ex-captains to play on for too long after they've quit as captain. While Ponting may play on until the 2013 & 2014 Ashes, it is quite likely that he'd have quit ODI cricket by then.

Bangladesh need to have a rethink about their domestic cricket structure, and ensure that the top 25-30 players get a lot more exposure to cricket against first-class teams from countries that are better than them. It's quite obviouso that the talent is there, but they're not progressing beyond an odd upset every World Cup and getting thrashed by the rest of the stronger sides. Given their proximity to India & the vote that they bring to India's table at the ICC, I can't understand why they don't engage in some quid pro quo for test & ODI tours to India, and for IPL sides to pick their players.

England performed extremely well against the stronger sides, but lost it against the weaker ones (and barely survived against West Indies). This seems to indicate that it isn't a skill problem, but an inability to understand how to play limited overs cricket. Constantly complaining about the schedule doesn't get them anywhere. The Ashes-World Cup schedule was known well in advance, and they had the better part of 3-4 years since the 2007 World Cup to have a squad of 20-odd quality players to pick from. They have the bowling. Anderson, Broad, Ajmal Shahzad, Tremlett & Swann are a pretty handy lineup. But the batting is far too unidimensional with Strauss, Trott, Bell and Collingwood providing at least 2 too many 'bat 30+ overs' batsmen & only Pietersen, Bopara and Morgan providing the flair.

India won despite a bowling attack that was under threat of being smacked around every game, and a fielding unit (barring 2 or 3 players) which was ever willing to help opponents convert 1s into 2s, 2s into 3s, routine saves into 4s, etc. There's absolutely no doubt that they were the best side of the tournament, and they defeated all the top sides barring South Africa (England, perhaps conveniently, don't count). Yet, players like Virat Kohli & Sreesanth need to think about their game, and what they want to achieve. It is bizarre that Kohli, at 22, is unable to adapt his game to a situation where he goes in at #6 with a couple of overs left to go. He has to realize that he may not go in at #4 with 30 overs to go every time! Similarly, Sreesanth needs to realize that this was his 'last chance saloon'. He only had 2 opportunities to prove that he can be an effective #2 or #3 bowler in ODIs, and he fluffed up both times. If his strength is around generating late outswing, why did he pitch it so short on a very flat batting track in the final? Ashwin has most likely become the 2nd choice spinner, and I'd expect that he gets a lot more games over the span of the next 6-10 months to show that he can do a good job.

Ireland had at least 2 opportunities other than the game against England (v Bangladesh & v West Indies) to show that they should be given many more opportunities to compete against good sides, and also that a World Cup was better off with them than without them.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, australia, bangladesh, england, india, ireland, replica, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 3:11 am | Sledge/Read 132 sledge(s)
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World Cup semis: The stories you definitely won't see

Mahinda Rajapaksa invites Queen Elizabeth II and John Key to chill out at the World Cup semi-final

Sri Lanka's President (& head of government), Mahinda Rajapaksa, has invited New Zealand's head of state Queen Elizabeth II and the head of government John Key to enjoy his hospitality during the World Cup semi-final at the Premadasa stadium as part of a diplomatic coup. The two island nations have been engaged in a 'cold war' since December 2006 after Murali was controversially run out even as he was walking to congratulate Sangakkara on his brilliant 100 at Christchurch.

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Nathan Guy warns team against any attempts to smoke weed before semi-final

New Zealand's Minister of Internal Affairs, Nathan Guy, has issued a strict warning to the New Zealand team ahead of the World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka. Acknowledging that New Zealand cricketers had a past history, he indicated that the team was under surveillance. Smirking & refusing to comment when this reporter asked him if he knew what South Africa's batsmen were smoking during the quarter-final, he said "I don't know about that, but what they were doing was a phonetically similar 7 letter word ending with 'oking'".

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All set for mother of all semi-finals

Sri Lanka's media have lapped up the world's attention around the semi-final featuring Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Hordes of politicians, businessmen & celebrities have landed in Colombo. All hotels in and around Colombo have hung 'house-full' signboards and tickets are being traded in the black markets at premiums exceeding 500% of the list price.

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Will New Zealand finally break the World Cup jinx against Sri Lanka?

New Zealand's rugby fanatic media woke up on Saturday to the breaking news that their cricket team had finally got rid of their bogey side, South Africa. Their elation was tempered after the realization that the semi-final was against Sri Lanka, who they have never beaten in any knock-out game at an ICC event!

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, headline, new zealand, semi-final, sri lanka, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:43 pm | Sledge/Read 22 sledge(s)
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No authoritative performances in the league stage

A month after taking a shot at the semi-final line up for the 2011 World Cup, it is now obvious that that either India or Australia will make it to the semi-final. That quarter-final will be played 1 day after the 8th anniversary of an inconsequential World Cup game, the last time these 2 teams met at the World Cup.

The oddest part about the first round was that none of the major teams actually stamped their authority on the league stage. Australia was expected to blow away opponents with their bowling, but the only teams to suffer the wrath of Australia's 'quick gun Murugan' attack were Zimbabwe & New Zealand. Sri Lanka, Kenya, Canada & Pakistan were largely untroubled. Pakistan outwitted Sri Lanka and Australia, nearly slipped up against Canada and got thrashed by New Zealand. New Zealand got thrashed by Australia and Sri Lanka, but thrashed Pakistan in-turn.

India and England tried their best to give Group B a lot of close games, and looked thoroughly unconvincing. While England did win against #3 ranked South Africa, India's wins came against teams ranked #8 and #9. South Africa were commanding overall, but had a brain fade against England. They've been celebrating the last over win against India as evidence that they've finally got rid of the 'chokers' tag. Sadly though, that win came in an inconsequential game. They will need to do this in a knock-out game to prove that their debutant players don't get the choker tag along with the national cap! West Indies and Bangladesh were generally incompetent but did show some promise.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan did enough to suggest that the best way to catch Australia unawares was on a slow turning wicket. I don't particularly care if Ricky Ponting thinks such wickets are essentially 'rolled mud'. Since this is an ICC event, and the ICC has control over everything that happens at the ground, I assume that the pitches are prepared by the ICC's team. If that's the case, Ponting can't complain about anything.

If the pitches are prepared by the hosting country's curator(s), then you have to question if that's fair. For a World Cup event, home advantage should be limited to playing in familiar surroundings, getting a lot of crowd support, being able to include replacement players at really short notice, etc.

I don't know if Ponting will be playing during the 2015 World Cup, but I'd be interested to see how he reacts if the Sri Lankan captain says they were playing on a trampoline after seeing balls whiz past their heads at Perth. He wouldn't like it, would he?

As for the semi-final lineup, it does seem from the Australia-New Zealand and New Zealand-Zimbabwe matches at Ahmedabad (venue for Australia v India) that the side batting first can be blown away. Mirpur (Pakistan v West Indies & New Zealand v South Africa) definitely assists spinners. Colombo (Premadasa) also shows that spin will rule. So, I wouldn't be surprised if the semi-final lineup was Australia v Pakistan and South Africa v Sri Lanka.

In other news, Shoaib Akhtar said bye bye to international cricket after a mercurial career that included 100 mph deliveries, drugs, ball tampering, fighting with a teammate, faking injury, etc.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, akhtar, prediction, retire, shoaib akhtar, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:53 pm | Sledge/Read 16 sledge(s)
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Those who get the short shrift at the World Cup

Last week, Haroon Lorgat, the ICC Chief Executive, announced that the 2015 World Cup would feature 10 teams. This almost effectively means that Associates and Affiliate members have no chance of competing (or is it participating?) at the tournament, unless the ICC introduces a qualification tournament.

Around the time the 2007 tournament was still coming to terms with the early exit of India & Pakistan, I wrote that weaker teams should play in the tournament, but they should also get enough games against stronger opposition in the year leading up to the World Cup. I proposed a qualification round featuring the finalists from the ICC Trophy and the teams ranked #9-#11 in the ICC's ODI rankings. The top teams from a 10-game round-robin tournament make it to the main draw, which would now have a total of 10 teams.

There are lots of arguments for and against the inclusion of minnow sides. It is undeniable that these teams get thrashed pretty much all the time. Across all games played at the World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy (& its earlier avatars) and the T20 World Cup, 9 out of the top 10 thrashings (margin of defeat in terms of runs) have been handed out to minnow sides. Yet, #11 in the list is England's 200-run thrashing of India in the 1975 Cup opener.

The 10 lowest all-out totals have been made by minnow sides. Sri Lanka feature as the punching bag on quite a few occasions on both lists. They've not done badly over the past 25-30 years, have they? Admittedly, they do have a few more things going for them (compared to say Canada).

In my opinion, the minnow sides Cup can (and must?) actually be supported by one or more of the main teams. For e.g., Bermuda by West Indies; USA & Canada by Australia/New Zealand; Scotland, Ireland & Netherlands by England; Afghanistan (& Bangladesh to some extent) by India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka and Namibia, Kenya (& Zimbabwe) by South Africa. This should include the 'A' team playing home & away series against the minnow side's national and 2nd XIs as well as under-19 tours.

If the ICC can't get the individual boards to agree and implement a development programme for associate and affiliate members that makes sense, and helps them prepare to play at a good level, the ICC should just announce that this whole "Let's globalize cricket" idea was just a pile of nonsense. The minnow sides get the short shrift at pretty much every ICC event, and you feel genuinely sorry to see sides with talent who get blown away because of lack of opportunities.

I feel the same way when it comes to the Indian cricket fan who pays his way to watch cricket at stadiums. In general, cricket stadiums (or stadia?) in India tend to be massive 50,000+ capacity concrete structures with pathetic spectator facilities.

The bulk of the 50,000+ seats are allotted to corporates, sponsors, people in (or close to) power and affiliate clubs of the state association. This typically leaves around 10-20000 tickets for the general public, usually resulting in a mad rush and stampede when the ticket counter opens. On quite a few occasions, the purchasers of most of these tickets find that they've landed a lemon, because of a ticket scam.

All the stadiums that're hosting World Cup games have gone through significant renovations, primarily targeted at improving player facilities. From all reports, it seems like there have actually been on-ground improvements. Yet, the upgrades have come at a cost. To take just 3 examples, the Wankhede and Chepauk will seat 10% less while Eden Gardens will seat 25% less.

That decrease in capacity will quite likely not impact the hand-outs to sponsors, affiliate clubs and local bigwigs. The only ones who will get the short shrift are those who brave any sort of weather to queue up and buy tickets.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, capacity, facilities, icc, minnows, stadiums

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:35 am | Sledge/Read 31 sledge(s)
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Predicting the 2011 World Cup semi-finalists

If the last couple of weeks were primarily around World Cup selections and omissions, the focus this week is on players being ruled out through injury (Mike Hussey, Nathan Hauritz, Eoin Morgan and Praveen Kumar).

A few others like Jacques Kallis, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Paul Collingwood, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ricky Ponting and Shaun Tait are still out of action, and we'll definitely hear about more withdrawals over the next few days.

Moving on from injuries, can we use the period from after the 2007 World Cup to identify trends related to how various teams would perform?

I'm restricting the analysis to games involving only the top 9 teams. (Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka & West Indies). Where required, I filter out matches not played on the sub-continent. Although Pakistan isn't a host, having played there gives teams a half-decent idea of the conditions they can expect at other venues. One problem though is that West Indies has only played 3 ODIs in the sub-continent in the period, and one was rained out!

The parameters I consider are overall win-loss record, team stability (measured as # of matches / # of players), overall batting average, batting average for top order (#1-#4), middle order (#5-#7) & lower order (#8-#11), overall bowling average, wickets per match and overall bowling economy rate.

Here's how the rankings look across those parameters.

W/L record in the sub-continent: India, South Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, England, New Zealand, Bangladesh & West Indies

Team stability (no sub-continent filter): India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka & England

Overall batting average: Australia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England, West Indies, Bangladesh & New Zealand

Top order batting average: South Africa, Australia, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, West Indies, England, Bangladesh & New Zealand

Middle order: Australia, India, Pakistan, England, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies & South Africa

Lower order: New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, England, Australia & West Indies

Bowling average: Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Pakistan, Australia, India, Bangladesh & West Indies

Wickets per match: South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, England, Bangladesh, Australia, India, New Zealand & West Indies

Economy rate: New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies, England, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh & India

Assign ranks to each of the teams in the categories (e.g. for the sub-continent w/l record data, the ranks would be 1: India, 2: South Africa, 3: Australia, etc.). Add up the total ranks across all categories. The teams with the lowest 4 totals are the most likely to get to the semis based on the past trends.

Team	Total
Australia	35
Bangladesh	61
England	52
India	38
New Zealand	48
Pakistan	39
South Africa	29
Sri Lanka	35
West Indies	68

This indicates that the 4 semi-finalists would be South Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka & India with Pakistan also being in the reckoning. Sri Lanka & Australia are in group A while the South Africa & India are in group B. So at least it won't be an impossible situation.

A few things are very obvious from the individual parameter rankings: South Africa have had a fragile middle order. Australia's lower order batting has been weak & their bowling in the sub-continent hasn't been too great. Sri Lanka's bowling has done a great job so far. India's bowling has been downright pathetic. Pakistan are sort of average across all parameters and so suffer in comparison to teams who have good stats across 3-4 parameters & bad ones in the remaining parameters. New Zealand's tail end batting and bowling (econ rate) have been really good. England have trouble with their batting. Bangladesh gets saved by their middle & lower order pretty much each time.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, prediction

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:52 pm | Sledge/Read 19 sledge(s)
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World Cup - Surprise picks and omissions

Similar to India's 1 surprise pick & Sri Lanka's 2 surprise omissions in their 2011 World Cup squads, most other teams had at least one selection that was odd.

Australia picked Brett Lee and David Hussey, who hadn't played any internationals for nearly 1.5 years. With the tournament being played in the sub-continent, Australia picked 1.6 specialist spinners (Steve Smith bowls 6 overs per game on an average). Now that's a bizarre pick. Australia's part-time spin options are David Hussey (2 overs per game before he was picked in the squad) and Cameron White (2-3 overs per game when he had the skipper's trust and had not even bowled a single ball since August 2009). With 5 quicks & an all-rounder, clearly Australia are relying on pace to win. Seems like a gamble to me.

Despite investing nearly a year in Craig Kieswetter and Steve Davies, England went back to Matt Prior. Other than that, the squad seems reasonably balanced, with a couple of bits-and-pieces players in Luke Wright & James Tredwell.

Luke Woodcock is the unknown player in New Zealand's squad. He hadn't even played an ODI before he was picked. The squad seems weak on the batting though, and the opening slot hasn't yet been sorted out.

Pakistan didn't have any major surprises in the squad, but they did come up with one bolter. They didn't name a captain! That said, the batting definitely looks shaky with only Younis Khan & Misbah having the skills to do a good job with the middle overs. Only 2 specialist spinners were picked, which seems odd for a Pakistani side playing a World Cup in the sub-continent.

South Africa, by contrast, picked 3 specialist spinners, 2 of who are newbies. South Africa's problem is with #6, #7 and #8. Having dropped Boucher, who used to come in at #6 & #7 and salvage a crisis, they don't have too many experienced players to fill up those slots. The batting essentially ends after Duminy (typically at #5).

West Indies have picked just 5 bowlers (3 quicks & 2 spinners) and are obviously hoping that Dwayne Bravo will bowl his full spell and pick up wickets regularly.

The other omission was that of Eden Gardens. The ground won't host the India v England game & the match will now be played at Bangalore. But there seems to be some ambiguity around it. Kyazoonga, the official ticketing partner, doesn't list the India v England game. Does this mean backroom negotiations are still going on, and Eden Gardens will get the game?

Actually, the Cricket Association of Bengal, which is really the main agency to be blamed for the fiasco, should just relinquish its hosting rights for the other games at the ground, each of which is guaranteed to bring in crowds of at least 90000.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, australia, england, new zealand, pakistan, south africa, squad, west indies, world cup, world cup squads

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:54 am | Sledge/Read 97 sledge(s)
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2011 World Cup squads - Sri Lanka & India

Around 10 days ago, Sri Lanka announced the 15-member squad for the 2011 World Cup and it contained 2 bizarre omissions - Jayasuriya & Vaas. Now, why would you include these two in the preliminary 30-member squad two weeks earlier and leave them out without them having played any ODIs in-between to improve or worsen their chances of selection?

It's not like they have been active ODI players over the last 1-2 years. Jayasuriya last played an ODI in December 2009 while Vaas last turned out in August 2008! Why did they even get picked in the squad of 30 in the first place?

The BCCI did something similar earlier today. Piyush Chawla, who would most likely be the player Makarand Waingankar alluded to in the context of age manipulation, hasn't played an ODI since July 2008. Yet, he was picked in the 15-member Indian squad.

There are only 2 problem selections in the squad - Piyush Chawla and the absence of a reserve wicket-keeper. I am not sure if the playing conditions have been drawn up, but it is quite likely that if a player is coming into the World Cup with a known injury (i.e. didn't pick it up on/off the field during the tournament), a replacement player may not be allowed. Even when a replacement is allowed, the injured player cannot play any further part in the tournament.

The BCCI selectors are essentially punting on skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni not injuring himself through the tournament. That's a huge risk to take with someone who has played the 2nd most number of internationals since 2008, the triple role he plays and the multiple injuries he has been playing through.

Dinesh Karthik would have been a good 2nd choice wicket-keeper especially given his ability to keep reasonably well and play counter-attacking innings. But his last 5 ODI innings produced 30-odd runs.

With Virat Kohli (unlikely to regularly feature in the playing XI), Suresh Raina & Yusuf Pathan the only decent fielders, and the likes of Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel, Yuvraj Singh (a pale shadow of his 2000-2006 days), Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh & Praveen Kumar being first XI choices, India's opponents will have loads of opportunities to pick up at least 1-2 extra runs an over without even trying to hit a boundary or six.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, india, squad, sri lanka, world cup, world cup squads

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:38 pm | Sledge/Read 8 sledge(s)
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BCCI's planning for the 2011 World Cup

The Indian squad selected for the totally meaningless tri-series in Sri Lanka gives us a good idea of what the BCCI's plan for the 2011 World Cup is.

There does not seem to be any semblance of planning. The only aspect of the selection which makes sense is that Sachin Tendulkar isn't playing.

Harsha Bhogle points out that India have 8 or 9 ODIs in home-like conditions before the World Cup - 3 (or 4 if qualifying for the final) in Sri Lanka, 3 ODIs v Australia and 2 v New Zealand.

There are multiple gaps to be filled, especially when it comes to backup resources. This tournament, and the next 3 ODI series (including a one-off ODI v/s South Africa) would have been great opportunities to give the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, Wriddhiman Saha, Jaidev Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni and Abhinav Mukund a go. A total of 18 players played at most 10 matches since the 2007 World Cup.

There is no dearth of bench strength. Those players are performing at the under-19 and India 'A' levels. But how do you find out how good they are at the ODI level unless they're given an opportunity to succeed (or fail)?

Dhoni, Sehwag & Nehra didn't need to play this tournament. Yuvraj is at #6 on the wicket takers & overs bowled lists since the previous World Cup. That tells you how successful the hunt for bowlers has been.

44 players selected for 103 ODIs, in July tells a story.

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, bcci, india, selection

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:07 am | Sledge/Read 7 sledge(s)
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ICC and PCB - The 'unfathomables'

The ICC announced last week that the Cricket Committee recommended the DRS be used in all test series as well as the 2011 World Cup.

Yet again, the ICC will be conducting an experiment in their flagship event. Before the 2006 Champions Trophy in India, the ICC announced that reviews would be introduced at the tournament and, if successful, would be in force during the 2007 World Cup.

Thankfully, sanity prevailed a couple of months later, and the executive board threw that idea out of the window.

The DRS has so far, to the best of my knowledge, never been used in limited over internationals (50 overs or 20 overs). Without trialling it in bilateral series or other 3-4 nation tournaments, it would be downright stupid to use a World Cup to introduce the reviews system.

We still don't know how much time would be spent in a typical 50 over game on both teams appealing against the umpires' decisions. Wouldn't that result in the game being stretched beyond the normal 3 hr 30 mins / 3 hr 45 mins duration?

The ICC wants the broadcaster to shell out the money for the technology used. Maybe the right way to 'sell' the concept to the broadcaster is that they would have at least 10 minutes more per innings of telecast time, and thus something like 30-40 more advertisement slots.

The ICC's argument is that poorer (associate & affiliate) countries that don't benefit from the DRS shouldn't have to subsidize countries that will play games using the reviews system. The broadcaster's counter-argument should be that they don't want to pay up for a system that is unproven, and could potentially work against their favourite team.

Imagine if ESPN-Star, Sky Sports or the Nine Network paid up for the DRS, and the decisions kept going against India, England or Australia. For sure the broadcaster, and the audiences, would hate it!

From all evidence so far though, there is a lot more fine-tuning needed with the DRS, and I humbly submit that the World Cup is not the stage for a trial.

On 9 March, the PCB banned 4 players (2 indefinite, 2 for 1 year) and fined 3 others, who were placed under probation for 6 months.

Less than 3 months later, 2 of those banned and all the 3 who were fined are in a probables list for the Asia Cup and a tour of England. The 16 year-old ball-muncher is made captain.

I apologize. I totally give up trying to make sense out of the ICC's and the PCB's actions.

Labels: 2011 world cup, afridi, ban, icc, pakistan, reviews, selection

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:29 am | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Breaking news: Pakistan will not co-host the 2011 World Cup

As noted on a twitter update just now, Reuters reports that the ICC has ruled that Pakistan will not co-host the 2011 World Cup.

If you have an opinion about who's to blame for this move, pick from the options below!

	The PCB
	The ICC's double standards
	The BCCI and Sri Lanka Cricket
	Rest of the world (Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa & West Indies)
	The Indian Premier League
Pollhost.com

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, breaking news, icc, pakistan, security, terrorism

Thus spake Jagadish @ 8:06 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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ICC gets a few things right at least

The ICC's board met yesterday and there were quite a few significant announcements.

• It emphasized that bilateral series commitments would take precedence over IPL. Now will the WICB do something about Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan who say they will play in the IPL rather than against Australia? I suppose player contracts would have clauses that prevent players from plying their trade elsewhere when they are required to turn out for the national side. That aspect can and should be enforced against Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan. Unlike the bans imposed on ICL players, I don't think this is a restraint of trade situation.
  
• The Zimbabwe Cricket Union gets away scot-free despite the continued scrutiny over the handling of ICC-released funds for over three years now.
  
• The format for the 2011 World Cup is finalized. My post a year ago or so proposed only the top 8 teams having an automatic qualification while the remaining teams play against the ICC trophy finalists in a round-robin manner with the top 2 making it to the main draw. The main draw would have 2 groups of 5 teams each, played in round-robin. The top 3 from each group qualify for a Super Six round with the top 4 being the semi-finalists. There'd be a total of 42 games played, 32 of them being in the main tournament. Subsequent comments argued (rightly) for the second stage being a quarter-final knockout. This'd reduce the number of main draw games to 27. The ICC's thinking is on the lines of all 10 full ODI playing countries being joined by the top 4 finishers from a qualified (presumably the ICC trophy). The 14 teams are split into 2 groups of 7 each. The top 4 from each group go on to play quarter-finals and the winners of the quarter finals play the semis. This means there'd be 28 47 (2 x 7C2 + 4 + 2 + 1) games. Perhaps, in the interest of 'inclusivity' in cricket, the ICC's format is acceptable. That's far too many games!
  
• Player referrals will be trialled from South Africa's tour of England this summer. I eagerly look forward to player revolts, especially by lower order batsmen and part-time bowlers, against captains and team management, who discourage them from appealing against on-field umpire decisions so that the better batsmen or bowlers can benefit, just in case the appeal isn't worth it.
  
• Darrell Hair, who was hung out to dry in around November 2006, has been reinstated and will be eligible to umpire games between full member teams until March 2009, when his contract expires. This was always the right thing to do. Darrell Hair is a good umpire. He isn't incompetent, when you compare him with Bucknor or Benson. He took a harsh decision on 20 Aug 2006, but it was the right decision.
  
• Imtiaz Patel has been 'selected' as the CEO, but the negotiations are not yet done. Last year, we saw a similar situation with the farce around Graham Ford's appointment, and subsequent withdrawal, as India's coach. Why did the ICC put its foot firmly in its mouth by prematurely announcing Imtiaz Patel's name when he hadn't even agreed?!

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, ball tampering, forfeit, hair, icc, indian premier league, ipl 2008, oval 2006, pakistan, reviews, scheduling, twenty20, west indies, world cup, zimbabwe

Thus spake Jagadish @ 4:19 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Recent posts on AOL

1. Wishlist for the 2011 World Cup.
   
2. In such a rapid set of one-dayers (India in Ireland), what the Indian team needs to do is to get the momentum going by winning the first 2-3 games.
   
3. South Africa wants Australia to give up its monopoly over hosting Boxing Day and New Year's Day tests. This was always going to happen at some point of time or the other. What should the BCCI do?

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, aol, australia, bcci, guest blogger, india, scheduling, south africa, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:14 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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England take first step towards winning the 2011 World Cup

Barely two weeks after he'd emphatically declared that England were better off with him as the one-day captain, Michael Vaughan decided to quit before he was pushed. He was most certainly misquoted, if you read the ECB media release, for this is what he actually said.

Since Michael Vaughan's team's disappointing performances in the World Cup, Michael Vaughan has been giving careful consideration as to what is the best way forward for the England one-day team and Michael Vaughan's own role within the side.

The only basis on which he'd find a place in England's one-day side was because of his captaincy. One-day cricket is far too fast-moving for England to accomodate such a single-dimensional player (assuming that his fielding and batting count for little in comparison to his captaincy). Clearly, all that spin about how experiments with separate captains for tests and one-dayers weren't so successful had conveniently brushed aside the facts that Ponting won a World Cup while Hollioake led England to a surprise win in Sharjah a decade ago.

Better late than never! We've rambled far too often about Vaughan's hopeless batting record in one-dayers.

But what is also interesting is England's record when he was captain. A positive win-loss record (32-22 from 60 games) seems quite good, until the realization hits us that 43 out of those 60 games were played against half-decent sides (Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka & West Indies) and England won 17 out of those games. Ergo, England've been quite poor even when he's been in charge. There're two implications here:

1. His team has always been pathetic. So there's no evidence of his captaincy skills having ever helped his team.
2. His captaincy skills in one-day cricket were a little over-rated, since his inability to adapt to one-day cricket also meant he used the same captaincy principles in test and one-day cricket.

Which obviously leads me to ask what he was doing in the side in the first place? Despite him claiming that he will continue to be eligible for selection as a ODI player, I'd find it bizarre if he was picked. At least now England can get in a significantly better one-day batsman and plan for the next 2011 World Cup.

Labels: 2011 world cup, captaincy, england, odi, vaughan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:56 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Shock and horror and a format for the 2011 World Cup

It was with total amazement, shock and horror that I read the last line of this report in the BBC about the impact of India's first round exit from the World Cup.

Sony's Kunal Dasgupta now says the format of the tournament is flawed.

"In a 48-day tournament, if teams like India and Pakistan are out for playing bad cricket in two matches, there is something really wrong. We were against this format and even told the International Cricket Council to reconsider it," he said.

It's been pretty obvious for a while that television runs most things in cricket, including scheduling. It is perhaps time to congratulate the ICC for sticking to their schedule instead of kowtowing to the demands of sponsors, rights owners, etc.

There is nothing wrong with the fact that the first round has only 3 games per team. India and Pakistan are out because their opponents played better. Apparently the ICC had framed up this schedule after getting feedback from players and boards that the previous World Cup, which had two groups of six teams each, had the potential to have too many games involving minnow teams.

I'm of the opinion that weaker teams should play in the World Cup, but they should also get enough games against stronger opposition in the year leading up to the World Cup. At the same time, we ought to ensure that the World Cup isn't a tournament where around 50% of the teams have absolutely no chance of getting anywhere near the knock-out stage.

My solution, for the 2011 World Cup in the Indian sub-continent is to merge the schedule of the 2003 World Cup (Super Six stage), the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy (having a qualification round) and the current one (a round-robin in the second stage).

The top 8 from the 11 ODI playing nations don't have to go through a qualification round. The qualifiers from the ICC Trophy (only the finalists) play against the 3 ODI playing nations who didn't make it to the main draw. So that means 5 teams in the qualifier round. Play a round-robin (10 games) and the top two teams make it to the main draw.

The main draw would have a total of 10 teams, split into 2 groups of 5 teams each. They play a round-robin and the format becomes similar to the 2003 World Cup Super Six stage (six teams qualify - now 3 from each group, teams carrying over points against the other team which qualified, play against the other 4 teams which qualified etc.). Then the top 4 get to the semis and the winners of the semis play in the final. This'd mean a total of 32 games (20 in the first round, 9 in the second, 2 semi finals and 1 final). Even if we include the 10 qualifier round games, that's a total of 42 games. Compare this to the current tournament - 51 games in all, 24 of them in the first round and an equal number in the second round.

In terms of number of days the tournament would run, that'd obviously reduce too. The 2007 World Cup goes on for around 45 days. This could be significantly reduced to around a month (two first round games per day - 10 days of playing time, 9 days for the second round, 3 for the knock out games). Add in reserve days for all games and two rest days per team and we'd be looking at around 30-odd days. I don't have those details worked out though.

Labels: 2007 world cup, 2011 world cup, icc, scheduling, television, tv rights, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:21 pm | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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ICC-BCCI partnership

In the light of the carping between the BCCI and the ICC over poor pitches, honouring Azharuddin, playing in the ICC Champions Trophy, hosting the 2011 World Cup, hosting the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, bidding for ICC event rights, etc., Anand Ramachandran reports on a developing symbiotic relationship between the ICC and the BCCI.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, 2011 world cup, bcci, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:49 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Venues for the next three World Cups decided

The big story over the weekend was obviously the grant of the staging rights for the 2011, 2015 and 2019 World Cups. In one single shot, the ICC awarded 2011 to Asia, 2015 to Australasia and 2019 to England.

I wonder how the ICC would react if the governments of Australia, New Zealand or the UK suddenly withdrew the tax exemption status for hosting the event.

Of course, I still remain singularly unconvinced by the BCCI's turnaround in thinking. Unless there is some loophole they've discovered which helps them make millions of moolahs. One option could be corporate boxes.

Stadiums in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka can host, on an average, 40000 spectators for a game. I'd assume that the boards would sell around 5000-10000 of those tickets to the corporate world, who'd be more than happy to lap up those tickets at a price upwards of Rs. 5,000 per ticket and host politicians, existing and potential clients, employees (?) etc. So even on the lower end of the bargain, the cricket boards would be able to sell 5000 tickets at Rs. 5,000 each to pocket a cool Rs. 2.5 crores. I know this calculation may not be too applicable outside of India, given the relative sizes & performances of the national economies, but there could still be significant sums earned by the boards through these corporate 'boxes', especially when you multiply that amount per game by the number of games!

Labels: 2011 world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 5:38 pm | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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The BCCI's convoluted thinking

A couple of months ago, the new BCCI administration caused a flutter when it announced that India would not participate in future editions of the Champions Trophy. In addition, it also objected to the ICC's plans for a Twenty20 World Cup. Both these actions were on the basis that the BCCI would not get any substantial revenues from events organized by the ICC, since the ICC has its own sponsorship/telecast deals for its events.

The ICC yesterday announced that it had received bids/proposals for several events, including the 2011 and 2015 World Cups, the Women's World Cup and a few editions of the Champions Trophy. It has been apparent for a while now that there're two main contenders for the 2011 World Cup: A cartel of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan & Sri Lanka and the duo of Australia & New Zealand.

Given that the BCCI honchos have often argued about ICC-owned events not being profitable for host countries, why did they go ahead with the bid for the 2011 World Cup in the first place? Surely it can't be their case that the World Cup is such a huge event and that it would automagically result in significant revenues aside from what the ICC would earn. From what I can infer, the only revenue a hosting country/board earns is the gate revenue, i.e. spectators at the ground. Sponsorships at the grounds, on television etc. are controlled by the ICC's deals with its official sponsors. Any violation of this would amount to ambush marketing. Gate revenue would obviously form a very insignificant portion from the proceeds, even if the tickets (and products sold inside the stadium) are priced at a high premium. The BCCI would also need to get a confirmation from the government in terms of a tax exemption from the Indian government for hosting the event.

I can't see the logic behind the change of heart. Can you?

Labels: 2011 world cup, bcci

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:33 am | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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