Assessment of the World Cup

[Spark]

I love a WC tournament in India, except for one thing...the ****ing dew. That ****ing dew makes it feel like games are decided by the toss. It was the same thing with the t20 WC last time.

Is there anything that can be done to alleviate this? I mean, they can play day games, but money loves day/night so that's not happening. Without fixing the dew problem, I strongly feel India tournaments are a bit of a joke, which is a pity, because they have everything else going for them.

I mean, how many teams won batting first in this tournament and just crushing the opposition? Dew matters but it's far from result-deciding, and in this tournament we often saw prodigious new ball swing under lights before the dew set in.

 

[Uppercut]

I thought conditions were quite well balanced in most games I watched. There was a bit of extra movement under lights and pitch disintegration that offset the advantage of the dew.

 

[GIMH]

The most important thing is, aside from a few disclaimers that I'll footnote below, it's been a great WC to discuss here on CW. Some of my mates don't understand why I'd spend a few hours on a Saturday morning watching Afghanistan V bangladesh. First of all they don't like cricket as much as I do but discussing these things on real time here usually makes for an enjoyable experience (less so when England implode ofc, the doom mongering Englishmen being far harder to tolerate than the poundland Burgeys weak trolling). So I would like to thank CW for that.

Footnotes though:
1. The moaning that there would be loads of dead games, about 3 weeks before we actually had any
2. Some messy business going on in the aftermath of the final
3. Losers and haters still struggling to accept that England won the 2019 WC. We don't hold it anymore, time to move on you sad weasels

Much love to all

 

[Burgey]

Why did you put your footnotes above the last line of text in the body of the post?

 

[GIMH]

Why did you put your footnotes above the last line of text in the body of the post?

A question I asked myself before hitting reply, and then posted it anyway.

 

[SteveNZ]

Cricket in the future will be this

T20: The best players will be playing in franchise tournaments all year round, Perhaps this will have a more World League view. Massive contracts, TV coverage and areas around the world will see the best players. Internationals will only occur for T20 around World Cup years

Traditional: Players deemed not good enough for T20. This will be Domestic Cricket and Test Match cricket. 50 Overs will be played as well but no World Cup due to the Money involved in T20

This sounds horrible.

 

[honestbharani]

This sounds horrible.

You might say its very e.

 

[Daemon]

The most important thing is, aside from a few disclaimers that I'll footnote below, it's been a great WC to discuss here on CW. Some of my mates don't understand why I'd spend a few hours on a Saturday morning watching Afghanistan V bangladesh. First of all they don't like cricket as much as I do but discussing these things on real time here usually makes for an enjoyable experience (less so when England implode ofc, the doom mongering Englishmen being far harder to tolerate than the poundland Burgeys weak trolling). So I would like to thank CW for that.

Footnotes though:
1. The moaning that there would be loads of dead games, about 3 weeks before we actually had any
2. Some messy business going on in the aftermath of the final
3. Losers and haters still struggling to accept that England won the 2019 WC. We don't hold it anymore, time to move on you sad weasels

Much love to all

Yeah tbh shitposting here is half the fun

 

[Ali TT]

Just couldn't get into this tournament. I really enjoyed the rugby WC but in this one, once it became clear that England were going to be a pile of **** and India were going to stuff everyone on the way to the final, it lost any sense of jeopardy and intrigue until India ****ed up at the last hurdle. Good that Afghanistan and Netherlands were more than competitive but it's worrying that Pakistan, SL and Bangladesh just appear to be fully stuck in the second tier. As one article said, for a large chunk of the tournament the most interesting thing was qualification for the CT, a tournament that really shouldn't exist.

The format for 2017 sounds terrible. Too many teams and not enough knock out matches.

 

[chris.hinton]

This sounds horrible.

I agree but its heading that way mate

 

[Spark]

Don't see how this WC shows that traditional-style players are out of vogue. Both finalists basically had most of their Test teams playing.

 

[Ashes81]

There needs to be more knockout matches - that's the very essence of WC in any sport.

As India found out in this WC, there's a big difference between the group games and knockout games.

There should be 2 groups of 7 with the top 4 going through in each group to play knockout matches from the QF onwards.

That would give us 7 genuine knockout games and each side would play at least 6 games.

It's not perfect, no format is, but that's what I would go with.

 

[Molehill]

There needs to be more knockout matches - that's the very essence of WC in any sport.

As India found out in this WC, there's a big difference between the group games and knockout games.

There should be 2 groups of 7 with the top 4 going through in each group to play knockout matches from the QF onwards.

That would give us 7 genuine knockout games and each side would play at least 6 games.

It's not perfect, no format is, but that's what I would go with.

Right on Brother!! More knockout matches are the way forward.

And yet it seems they're bringing back the godforsaken 'Super' 6 at the next one.

 

[Victor Ian]

Just do semis and final, but make them best of three.

 

[Yeoman]

The problem with quarter finals in the World Cup is that it renders most of the group phase irrelevant. When we had them, in 1996, 2011 and 2015, it was only England’s incompetence that created any degree of jeopardy. Otherwise we pretty much know who the top 8 teams are and the competition becomes a straight knockout.

 

[Yeoman]

I suppose that we could have 4 groups of 4 before the quarters which would certainly create jeopardy, however we know that the ICC would never risk 2007 happening again.

 

[GIMH]

I suppose that we could have 4 groups of 4 before the quarters which would certainly create jeopardy, however we know that the ICC would never risk 2007 happening again.

Yeah so basically Ireland and Bangladesh ruined the WC forever, cheers @Uppercut @AndyZaltzHair

 

[honestbharani]

There needs to be more knockout matches - that's the very essence of WC in any sport.

As India found out in this WC, there's a big difference between the group games and knockout games.

There should be 2 groups of 7 with the top 4 going through in each group to play knockout matches from the QF onwards.

That would give us 7 genuine knockout games and each side would play at least 6 games.

It's not perfect, no format is, but that's what I would go with.

Aka the 2011 and 2015 format

 

[Molehill]

The problem with quarter finals in the World Cup is that it renders most of the group phase irrelevant. When we had them, in 1996, 2011 and 2015, it was only England’s incompetence that created any degree of jeopardy. Otherwise we pretty much know who the top 8 teams are and the competition becomes a straight knockout.

As opposed to this year when we successfully predicted (it didn't take Nostradamus to work it out) the 4 semi finalists halfway through the 4th round of 9 matches.

At least this way you get 4 extra knockout games which are so much more watchable than the group stages.

 

[GIMH]

Should just have 16 teams, groups of 4, 2 from each group into knockouts.