T20I T20 World Cup Game 4 Sri Lanka v South Africa, June 4 2400hrs @ Nassau County International Cricket Stadium New York

[Around the Wicket]

Cricket will be a better sport when more teams are competitive at an international level.

The way for them to be competitive is to play more games against better opposition.

In a world where countries decide who they want to play and when (ie India as often as possible) this is the only real way for that to happen.

People sooking about a few blowouts in the first round of a world cup should look at pretty much every other sport, in which the same thing happens.

If you don't want to watch these games, don't. If you only care about the Super 8s and onwards, that's fine, have another couple of weeks to yourself and then switch on.

Mate I'm 33 there been trying to expand this game since I started watching cricket at the age of 6 and not 1 other side has hit the peak of the mountain.. its a lost cause. In fact its probably gone backward...

 

[akkaps]

45 games is still better than 55 games! That's 10 less and a week's less. Rather use that format at least. Didn't need to add more teams.

If you don't want to watch one sided or minnows play cricket, I am not telling you to. But there are people out there that appreciate seeing smaller nations play and seeing their development

 

[akkaps]

Mate I'm 33 there been trying to expand this game since I started watching cricket at the age of 6 and not 1 other side has hit the peak of the mountain.. its a lost cause. In fact its probably gone backward...

I don't think anyone is expecting these teams to win the tournament or anything on their first or second attempt. Had Afghanistan got Maxwell out cheaply in the 2023 World Cup, they would have qualified for the semi-finals; it's this kinda development some people are excited to see

 

[magpiemaniac44]

Uganda beat Zimbabwe (test playing nation) to qualify for this tournament

Happy to see more teams get a go in the T20 format

 

[big_e]

Mate I'm 33 there been trying to expand this game since I started watching cricket at the age of 6 and not 1 other side has hit the peak of the mountain.. its a lost cause. In fact its probably gone backward...

Sri Lanka were associates needing to qualify for the CWC in 1979 and won the whole thing by 1996.

How do you expect countries to improve by just playing each other again and again?

 

[corbies]

Agreed I would have been more a fan of what they done last time, Top 8 automatically make it and all the minnows play each other prior to the World Cup and the Best 2 make it through to join the two groups with a 10 team World Cup.

You'd end up with the following 2 groups going from the rankings.

Group A
India
England
New Zealand
South Africa
Minnow A

Group B
Australia
Windies
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
Minnow B

You could even have each group play each other twice with Top 2 from each group progressing to the semis.

Be good match up after good match up.

With this, why would the West Indies who lost to Scotland and Ireland at the last World Cup and finished equal 15th and won 1 of 5 games in the one before that on their way to finishing equal 9th get to automatically qualify?

If you've got a 10 team World Cup surely every nation should be having to qualify?