Pakistan most fluke team (and discussion about tournament structure fairness)

[Furball]

Prince, please answer this.

India and Pakistan both played and beat the same team South Africa.

Yet India does not get even one point from that win. Why?

Why doesn't India get the reward for beating SA who is qualified to be super 8?

In effect, it keeps India and south Africa on the same level regardless of fact that India beat them.

What is the logic behind considering some games and completely ignoring others while determining the top 4?

It's not as if the game against SA was inconsequential in any way. Winning it was necessary for us to ensure our survival in the tournament anyways.

India's reward for beating South Africa was qualifying for the Super 8s.

In the Super 8 stage, you start from scratch.

It's really not difficult to comprehend.

 

[ret]

India's reward for beating South Africa was qualifying for the Super 8s.

In the Super 8 stage, you start from scratch.

It's really not difficult to comprehend.

SA's reward for NOT beating Ind was also S8 *winks*

 

[Burgey]

Prince, please answer this.

India and Pakistan both played and beat the same team South Africa.

Yet India does not get even one point from that win. Why?

Why doesn't India get the reward for beating SA who is qualified to be super 8?

In effect, it keeps India and south Africa on the same level regardless of fact that India beat them.

What is the logic behind considering some games and completely ignoring others while determining the top 4?

It's not as if the game against SA was inconsequential in any way. Winning it was necessary for us to ensure our survival in the tournament anyways.

But they did get the points for it - and it got them to the next stage, where they've since played terribly. If SA had lost another match, they wouldn't have made the second stage.

 

[Sir Alex]

Well the last time they had a super 8 that involved all the teams playing everyone, it was a terrible and boring world cup. Now they want to make it short and sweet.

Then they should've made it a Super 10, with 2 groups of 5 each.

Because anyways a team which goes out in the super 8s don't get to play 6 of the total 12 teams anyways. While in a Super 10, it comes down to 5.

Or make it a knockout like old Champions trophy. Atleast the team with most wins will advance to next stage.

 

[Prince EWS]

Prince, please answer this.

India and Pakistan both played and beat the same team South Africa.

Yet India does not get even one point from that win. Why?

Why doesn't India get the reward for beating SA who is qualified to be super 8?

In effect, it keeps India and south Africa on the same level regardless of fact that India beat them.

What is the logic behind considering some games and completely ignoring others while determining the top 4?

It's not as if the game against SA was inconsequential in any way. Winning it was necessary for us to ensure our survival in the tournament anyways.

That's the way progressing through stages of a tournament works. The objective of each stage is to progress to the next one.

As I said before, it's the same principle that dictates Australia and India or Sri Lanka being on the same level come the semi final, and both finalists being on the same level in the final. No-one ever complains about that, and I'm yet to see what makes the fact that it's the final four intrinsically more important than the final eight. That's what the initial stage is for - to define the final eight; not the final four. The qualification for each stage is determined by what happened in the stage immediately before, regardless of whether it's a knockout stage or not.

What is the logic behind considering some games and completely ignoring others while determining the top 4?

The same logic that's behind considering two games and ignoring the rest when determining the top two...

 

[Sir Alex]

India's reward for beating South Africa was qualifying for the Super 8s.

In the Super 8 stage, you start from scratch.

It's really not difficult to comprehend.

No. They could've got in without beating SA.

That's why the reward for the 'extra effort'

 

[ret]

Another reason why carrying points you earned against the team that also advanced is the teams go in to R2 groups based on their pre-tournament seeding and not based on how they fared in their group in R1.

So even though SA finished 2nd in its group in R1, it goes to R2 as if it would have won the R1 group (based on its pre-tourney seeding)!!

 

[Sanz]

OMG once gain people complaining about format, what a surprise. It has been argued before that no format will be good enough ignoring The fact that India lost two matches in Super 8. I am satisfied with the point system.

 

[Son Of Coco]

It's fairly simple: you don't get through to the semi's of a major tournament simply by beating one team, so whether or not one team or another beat India, SA or whoever else is meaningless; and Twenty20 cricket is unpredictable by its very nature, so you're going to have more upsets than the longer forms of the game.

On a side-note, whoever banned the OP deserves to be congratulated.

 

[ret]

More on the system;

Let's take one of the groups:

- Aus (R1 grp winner)
- Ind (R1 grp winner)
- SL
- WI (R1 grp winner)

1. We have 3 R1 grp winners fighting for two semis spot!
2. SL gets to start with a fresh slate against those grp winners

 

[Quaggas]

How many games between two teams do people think would be needed to be reasonably confident that the winner of the head-to-head is the "better" team?

 

[Sir Alex]

That's the way progressing through stages of a tournament works. The objective of each stage is to progress to the next one.

As I said before, it's the same principle that dictates Australia and India or Sri Lanka being on the same level come the semi final, and both finalists being on the same level in the final. No-one ever complains about that, and I'm yet to see what makes the fact that it's the final four intrinsically more important than the final eight. That's what the initial stage is for - to define the final eight; not the final four. The qualification for each stage is determined by what happened in the stage immediately before, regardless of whether it's a knockout stage or not.



The same logic that's behind considering two games and ignoring the rest when determining the top two...

Ah, it's the classic case of missing the wood for the trees.

There could be fixtures drawn with multiple leagues like super 8, 6 etc, but the question is does it address the fact that the best team gets the Cup in the end?

The fact that one team with a 60 percent loss rate, and having won lower and lost more than another team which was thrown out screams out No.

The fact is the two stage concept creates more problems than it solves compounde by the puzzling logic to not provide for carry forward.

There is no perfect system I agree. But a system which allows for the above mentioned anomaly, whose complex and puzzling structure allows for teams to prosper above others despite performing worse than them must be done away with.

The logic perhaps behind having knockouts at the end could be that it also tests the mental strength of teams to handle the pressure of a do or die system. It also assumes that the top 4 are of roughly the same stuff.

It's also acceptable to think the top 8 or top 10 are also of same quality. That's when we have fully knockout tournaments like old Champions trophy.

@Burgey

In that instance instead of SA afghanistan would qualify.

 

[Burgey]

If anyone has a right to bitch about this system it would be NZ, surely.

Not a word from a NZ supporter on it that I've seen though.

 

[Jono]

The SAvs Pak game would be a must win game for SA.
So that means we can already count it as a SA loss.

Well played sir.

Heh.

 

[Sanz]

On a side-note, whoever banned the OP deserves to be congratulated.

Called out long ago.

 

[Sanz]

To be fair, they did only make the semis because of that rain, but from that point on they were unstoppable.

No one has ever denied that but Pakistan's world cup win was not a fluke. They deserved it as much as any other WC champions.

 

[Top_Cat]

Yeah and the comeback didn't really start until they beat Australia because they lost to both India and South Africa after the game against England in Adelaide.

And in the same way they were lucky to get a point in the game against England, Pakistan can definitely legitimately claim to have been robbed by the rain rule against South Africa. having bowled quite well, they weren't too far below the required run-rate with plenty of batting to come (just under 5 an over when they went off) before the rain came but when they came back out, needed about 8 an over to win. Coudn't believe it when Inzi and Imran almost got them home even in the face of that.

Even with all that against them, they beat Australia comfortably then went on to smash NZ at home and away (undefeated to that point) to make the final and beat the second best side in the tournament.

Swings/roundabouts, etc.

 

[Shifter]

I understand and am with Sir Alex on this one. Though as has been mentioned the whole finals situation makes the argument worthless. To truly determine who is the best team at a tournament a league only format where everyone plays everyone would be ideal. That isn't going to happen due to a number of reasons.

New Zealand were the more deserving of a semi final berth but thanks to a format that doesn't reward teams for all their efforts its not happening.

 

[social]

What I can't understand is the inability to recognise that the goal for each team of each stage of the tournament is merely to reach the next one. The 'point' of the first stage is simply to whet the appetite, give the associate nations some exposure on the world stage and progress the best eight teams to the next stage.

I don't see how this situation is any different from an undefeated team going down in a semi-final to a team that's lost a couple of games earlier... or even the declaration of the winner after the final. I'm getting really bored of all these soccer examples so I'll try my hand with a theoretical cricket one - if India make the final and beat Australia, I don't think anyone will be suggesting that we just award Australia the cup anyway because they had a better win percentage during the tournament. The same applies to a hypothetical example in a semi-final where a team like India with two losses defeats a team like Australia with zero losses - no-one's going to say that we should just let the loser progress because they have a better record. That completely undermines the principle behind progressing through each stage and building as you go along, as does what a select few people are saying in this thread. Knockout stages don't have any sort of special value that makes they different to round-robin group stages - it's all about doing what you can to make the next stage. Once you reach it, it starts again.

That doesn't even bother pointing out the intrinsic inequity in comparing the records of teams who have played entirely different opponents either.

I would

Tbh, I partially agree with our resident knight of the realm in that I dont think that the system is perfect and I would be slightly miffed if a team with a relatively poor win/loss ratio knocked Oz in the semis.

However, if India was in Oz's position and we beat them in the semis despite having a relatively poor record, it would all be good

Anyway, the teams knew the rules coming in so I'd be amazed if any of the players have given too much thought to it and I would be extremely surprised/disappointed if they begrudged a team the title just because they lost a few less important games earlier in the tourney

 

[BoyBrumby]

I've always thought carrying results over from one round to another a flawed concept. When it was first introduced (99 from memory) we had the unedifying spectacle of teams going deliberately slowly in run chases to make sure the NRR allowed an opponent whom they'd taken two points from to advance.

No other major team sport does it in their world cups.

I agree with PEWS: each stage is just a way of determining who advances. We all have hard luck stories where a team (usually our own) has gone out unluckily, but them's the breaks.