ICC - How's That?

Bismillah Al-Rehman Al-Rahim!

Assalam Ulikum,

First of all i would like to welcome you all on my brand new blog of cricket. I hope you will enjoy reading the posts. T-2o World CUp is almost through its first stage and for cricket lovers the good news is tahat we didn't witness any upsetes so far which ahs always been the case in ICC's major tournaments. This means that group E will consist of: Pakistan, New Zealand, England and most probably South Africa - who will take on Afghanistan in few minutes. Whereas group F will have Sri Lanka, Australia and West Indies.

The game between Australia vs. Bangladesh is just over - a great game to watch. It's so good to see the way Bangladesh is improving day by day. This morning when I was going to university along with few friends - one of them asked me what are the chances of Australia giving away the game to Bangladesh purposefully to knock Pakistan out. I replied "Thank God it's Australia"! A team of Australia's caliber will never lose to Bangladesh intentionally to knock Pakistan out of the tournament because they(Australians) are so confident about themselves, they know they can beat Pakistan at any given day and they don't have to play dirty games to knock them out. But I am 101% sure any team except Australia would have lost to Banladesh intentionally to knock Pakistan out. Pakistan is among tournament's favorites - at least my favorites. If they get going then there are no stopping to the defending champions. I belief it was Pakistan's good forutne that their fate was in Australia's hand instead of any other team. Any team would have loved to knock Pakistan out in the initial stages and that too very legally. As a matter of fact, I really belief the tournament format is encouraging teams to get involve in such "dirty" acts. The format is flawed and teams can take advantage of (what we call in finance) "the arbitrage conditions".

A reasonable loss against Bangladesh today would have helped the Kangaroos in several ways:

• Knocking out the defending champions
• In a slightly different case where Australia ranked 8 instead of 9th they would have been a part relatively easier group and would have faced teams like England, New Zealand and South Africa. 2 out of 3 wins would have cemented their place in the tournament.

I would like to highlight few points that will question the validity and reliability of the tournament format.

1. Duckworth/Lewis Method: After scoring 191 runs on a dead West Indian conditions, England were almost certain to beat the hosts quite comfortably. Rain invtervene the game; Duckworth/Lewis applied, the target from 191 runs off 20 overs revised to 60 runs off 6 overs. As a result Gayle always knew he has got 10 wickets to slog, slog and slog. Gayle, Bravo and Pollard - 1 out of 3 just needs to score a quick 20 and West Indies will win this game. And that is what happend West Indies won the game quite comfortably. Collingwood was not too happy with the Duckworth/Lewis system and probably with the rain. But the very next day rain intervened the England/Ireland game and saved the day for England. England were all out on a low score of 120 runs. Fortunately for England, the game ended in a no result. Perhaps Duckworth/Lewis in T-20 is duckWORTHLESS.
   

   I wonder instead of applying Duckworth Lewis, why don't ICC keeps a reserve day option?

2. Super 8 Groupings: Tournament grouping are based on last T-20WC ranking. Pakistan won the World Cup so they were ranked A-1, Sri Lanka B-1, South Africa C-1, and West Indies D-1 and so on. In Super 8s, A1 (Pakistan) will face B2 (New Zealand), C1 (South Africa), D2 (England) whereas B1 (Sri Lanka) will face A2 (Australia), C1 (India) and D1 (West Indies). This pre-determined grouping would encourage teams to lose the game from a weaker team intentionally to knock out the stronger opponent which will alter the grouping. For instance, if Australia positioned 8th and Bangladehs 9th (in a pre-tournament ranking). Australia could have easily lost to Bangladesh today and would happily face South Africa, England and New Zealand. Whereas now they will haveto face India, Sri Lanka and West Indies (who I belief are very dangerous on their home soil). Logically, Asutralia ended up being on top in group A, so they should have been the A-1 for super 8s. Pakistan ended up being the 2nd best team of the group yet they are getting chacne to play the weaker opponents. No incentive for teams doing well in group stages. As i earlier said, any team except Australia would have enjoyed losing to Bangladesh; Pakistan would have been unfairly knocked out.

The point here to notice is World T-20 is an international event and instead of eliminating fixing of matches - ICC is making match fixing a part of team's dressing room strategy; A food for thought for ICC. Maybe they have to work more analytically in order to make tournament more competitive. They need to focus on things like what are the chances of a team getting eliminated unfairly?