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Ever since the ICC announced the format for the 2011 Cricket World Cup, I found that a majority of English and Aussie bloggers and newspaper writers and former players have pounced upon BCCI's evil influence to create a format designed to ensure "India is not knocked out in the first round". They are, ofcourse, referring to the 2007 World Cup where India, indeed get knocked out.
Yet, does it protect only India? Does it not equally protect every other major nation? I have been pointing out in vain that the format is designd to protect all major nations,and it is a cynical, belly-burning exercise to keep pointing at India. And how I have been vindicated.
Let's assume we had the 2007 format. Further assume one of the 4 member groups had India, England, Netherlands and Bangladesh, here's how the points table will lool like:
India - 5 Points
Bangladesh - 4
England - 3
Netherlands - 0
In other words, England would already have been knocked out instead of sneaking through to Quarter Finals, as they are bound to now, and then ride their luck to a Cup win or atleast a Semi Final place!
In 2007, it was a freak occurence in the toughest groups - Ireland and Bangladesh being the best minnows, they were best placed to upset and they did. What if Bangladesh had been in South Africa's group in 2007? Bangla did beat SA in 2007, right? What if it had been in the group stage instead of Super-8? Would the same India haters be crying about the format being changed to protect South Africa? Ofcourse, not! That format gave too much leverage to one upset win and deserved to be changed - and this is why:
This is a good England team that can go on to win the World Cup. It would have been a travesty if they had been penalised for their freak loss to Ireland. If it had been the 2007 format, England would have been knocked out already.
I dont find Indian bloggers gleefully knocking England for this yet a whole lot of Foreign media writers and former playerr and bloggers still keep parroting the "format designed to protect India" line. Goes to show who real cricket fans are and who are blinded by hate.
So, who did the 2011 World Cup format protect? India? Answer that, my dear India-hating bloggers and newspaper writers and former players!
EDIT: There's a delicious irony as a corollary to this which I just realised - imagine this, WI beat India and England beat West Indies and Bangla beat Saffers, then India might be out of the Cup depending on runrate - and they would be already through if we had the 2007 format! Talk about the best laid plans of men and mICCe :lol:
Who did the 2011 World Cup Format Protect?
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3 comments:
I think its a format to maximize revenues. Since more than 50% of the revenue comes from India people are in a way not wrong in saying what they say.
Even the length of the tournament is because of Indian viewers. Technically, given that the world cup is held in 3 countries, there could easily have been more more matches scheduled per day. The reason we don't have more than 2 is the how much can an Indian viewer watch in a day?
the format indeed is to protect india... its just that other major teams are getting benefited too...
First of all, it's "_Whom_ did the ... Format Protect", Raj, and secondly, yes, of course, it protects all the major Test-playing nations, but, as other comments have indicated, surely we have to assume that it was designed primarily to _protect revenues_, and that means protecting India. Look at the ridiculous schedule -- also to maximize income, sometimes at the expense of cricket.
Lucky for the ICCC that Group B has turned out to be so exciting, mostly because of the painfully obvious failings of two of those "top nations" and the complete unpredictability of one of those two. Otherwise, we might have died of boredom by now...
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