Time to bite the bullet

The ICC should bite the bullet on the World Cup: find a way to build in a qualifying tournament that lets Associates dream of making it to the Finals, and make the Full Members fight to get there. The details of how to make sure Associates get enough match practice to be able to compete with that afforded by the FTP to Full Members are important. If some Full Members are to be automatically qualified via rankings then those will come from the FTP schedule and Associates need something similar. But the most important point remains the same: let the Associates dream of the World Cup.

La Copa Mundial and cricket

My last post on this blog was almost four weeks ago. The reason for that was simple: I'd been traveling in South America (more precisely, Ecuador and Peru). These are not places that make one think a great deal about cricket. Instead, I was swamped by futbol todos tiempos. Indeed, had Ecuador and Peru qualified the swamping would have been even more comprehensive. In these past few weeks then, thanks to a combination of traveling, timezones, lack of net access, my location and the Copa Mundial, I had very little exposure to cricket. Still, thinking about the World Cup does prompt thoughts about the modern game, its embrace of nationalism, and the contrasting fortunes of the World Cups in the games of cricket and football. Given the trajectories of cricket in recent times these comparisons are increasingly interesting.

The Copa Mundial has become bloated, sure, but it manages to dispense with the bloating very quickly, eliminating fifty percent of the field after the first round, and quickly moving on to a knockout. I still remember 16-team Cups, followed by the 24-team version, and while this 32-team version is more extensive, it still feels like things are moving along (and there aren't too many hopeless minnows around - even accounting for North Korea). Football's World Cup remains the supreme sporting event on the planet. Despite tweakings, the cricket World cup continues to slip in the assessments of fans. It needs a rescheduling, a rearrangement, a dicing-n-slicing if it is to retain its relevance and importance.

Each football World Cup sees the inevitable complaints made in the analysis of failures of ostensible favorites: the best performances are saved for the clubs, players have injuries left over from the club season etc. We've seen glimmerings of this analysis in the wake of India's crashing out of the T20 WC; I expect variants of it for different teams will appear (as it already has) down the line.

And of course, nationalism. Every four years, I pay attention to football. That is because I remain hopelessly stuck in country v. country contests. And that is why I'm still not an IPL follower (despite brave attempts to drum up interests). For the next couple of weeks, its all flag-waving, all the time. (And it will be same in cricket as the English season kicks off).

Time to be a jingoist. Sort of.

A familiar situation

Watching India's incompetent performance on Saturday, and realizing that the Australia game was now a knockout affair, triggered a sneaking feeling: does India always start major tournaments poorly? It seemed to me that the Indian team has a talent for ending up in must-win (or dependent on run-rate) situations very quickly. I wasn't sure, so I went and checked just the World Cups.

The record looks something like this:

• 2007 World Cup - lost to Bangladesh (eventually knocked out in pool round)
  
• 2003 World Cup - beat the Netherlands; lost to Australia in the next, still needed to scramble against Namibia as a result; went on to final
  
• 1999 World Cup - lost to South Africa (eventually knocked out by Australia in second stage)
  
• 1996 World Cup - Beat Kenya, then beat the West Indies (eventually knocked out in semi-finals)
  
• 1992 World Cup - Lost to England, did not qualify for semis
  
• 1987 World Cup - Lost to Australia, knocked out in semis
  
• 1983 World Cup - beat the West Indies, won the cup
  
• 1979 World Cup - lost to West Indies, knocked out in pool round
  
• 1975 World Cup - lost to England, knocked out in pool round
  

Not a pretty sight. In nine world cups, India have only won their opening game three times. Two of those wins have come against minnows, and in one of those occasions, they still painted themselves into a corner by losing the next game. The one time India began their campaign with a win against a major team, they won the cup.

I know this is neither here or there but it was an interesting exercise nevertheless and told me I wasn't completely deranged in thinking the situation India find themselves in today was a familiar one (at least for fans!).