There has been so much talk about the performances of the Associate Nations at the 2015 Cricket World Cup, the value they have added and the discrimination they are set to suffer with the International Cricket Council (ICC) planning to trim the tournament from 14 teams to 10. From the onset I do not wish to beat about the bush and will ask the question I posed last week: Is cricket about growing the sport globally or about how much money the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) can make? Right now it seems cash is king; why else does it take 44 days to complete 49 matches? The 42 pool fixtures could be all over with in 21 days – two per day; a day game and a day/night affair. But no.
The surest way to grow the sport is by enlarging the planet’s playing pool. In the words of JR: ‘Make the circle bigger.’ Martin Crowe has proposed an 18-team event consisting of two conferences of 9. Crowe contends that 72 league matches would be completed in 36 days (using the day and day/night fixture format) before the top four progress to a second pool stage. The qualifying teams will carry their points over (ala the old Super Six/Eight) and play against each of the four other sides from the opposing conference. That will take two weeks before a best-of-three semi-final series followed by a best-of-three final. Crowe also proposes 40-over matches played with one ball among other suggestions.
Now I find myself asking: ‘Who on earth are you to argue with Martin Crowe?’ However I think the biggest problem with Crowe’s proposal is that it will take 10 weeks to complete. That is longer than the current format. Instead I would enlarge the tournament to 16 teams, with possibly the Netherlands and Kenya joining the 14 we have seen in Australia and New Zealand for example. I would stage four groups of four (one match each) and this round robin phase would finish in 12 days with teams playing every fourth day.
You can have one rest day before a second group phase starts; let’s call it Group E and F. The top two teams from the initial four qualify for this and play three teams from other groups. For example the winner of A and D would be in Group E with the B and C victors in F and you alternate that for the runners-up. The top two progress to the semi-finals followed by a final.
My World Cup ensures the big boys play each other (to quench the BCCI’s thirst) while ensuring exposure and opportunity for the minnows (allegedly the role of the ICC). Moreover all of this is over and done with in around 27 days which is more likely to grip interest intensely rather than passively as I believe the existing format does. Of course no formula is perfect and the first thing Narayanaswami Srinivasan would moan about is that my format is similar to that used in 2007 when India and Pakistan were eliminated in the initial group phase. I am fully aware that India is responsible for more than 80% of the game’s global revenue but surely cricket is bigger than India.