What should be the format of the World Cup?

[The Young Chevalier]

15 teams, top 10 from ODI championship then bottom 3 and top 6 from World Cricket league 1 and then top 2 from World Cricket League 2.

3 groups of 5 with the top 2 going to a Super 6 then the a final

 

[The Speaker]

Incidentally, Bertus de Jong (formerly of CricketEurope and one of the go-to guys on Associate cricket, and it would be nice if he joined us rather than just hovering on reddit but I don't think there's any way for him to find us) did the numbers during the last World Cup on five different formats: 10 team round robin, 14 team with two groups, 15 team with three groups, 16 team with four groups and 20 team with four groups.

You can read that article here: http://www.cricketeurope.com/DATABASE/ARTICLES8/articles/000028/002895.shtml

But the important numbers he found are in this table:

By this measure, the 'least worst' option is the 15 team WC. It has the second highest risk of early elimination, but the groups of five mean it isn't super risky, but the worst team in each group won't be ranked as low as in the 20 team tournament.

This tournament has demonsrated that egregious mismatches are unlikely to be so common in the 20 team tournament as the table predicts.

The 16 team tournament (using QFs and not super eights) is over quickly, but has few 'big money' matches, too many dead rubbers potentially, and a high risk of eliminating a 'big money' team early.

The 10 team tournament is garbage except for having the most 'big money' matches, and the 14 team tournament isn't really that good or bad at anything.

 

[Kram]

More important than the WC imo is even just more games against full members.

 

[The Speaker]

Scotland defeating England today is the exact reason the bigger nations don't want a large WC. They fear losing, rather than caring about the future of the game.

 

[Hotdees]

I don’t mind the format for the next World Cup. More chance of the best team winning than a team whose form is largely average winning a couple of knockout games in a row and winning a World Cup.

Surely it’s better for the associate nations to get more cricket against the bigger nations between world cups rather than a few matches every 4 years.

It will not happen in the near future but the new 13 team 1 day league (14 with scotland) should be played over a 3 year period where every team must play the others in a 3 game series. Where these World Cup qualifying matches are played can be alternated like a Davis Cup tie would.

This would leave each team playing a minimum of 39 matches over 3 years. 2 points for a win , 1 for a draw. Teams are free to organise more matches outside this but only the 3 game series counts towards World Cup Qualification. This may also lead to teams picking their best one day sides more often which make it better to watch. How often outside the World Cup do we see Australias very best 50 over side play?

This gives all 14 teams a chance if good enough to qualify directly for the World Cup. Top 8 automatic qualification while The bottom 6 go into another tournament like they did this year with the next 6 best countries. A cut throat tournament like this is great for those countries development. Top 2 qualify for World Cup , top 6 qualify for the 1 day league after the World Cup.

 

[The Speaker]

Scotland defeating England today is the exact reason the bigger nations don't want a large WC. They fear losing, rather than caring about the future of the game.

This game has opened up a can of worms directly in the face of those who don't believe the "second tier" can cut it at the World Cup. Not just for the result itself - Associate nations have a string of victories at World Cups, despite there being zero Associates at the upcoming one - but for the wider place the teams involved have in ODIs at the moment.

England are the number one nation in ODIs. Scotland are 14th. They will not feature in the upcoming ODI Championship, which consists of the 12 full member nations, along with the Netherlands, who were the winners of the World Cricket League Championship. Scotland finished ahead of two full members (Ireland and Zimbabwe) and Nederland at the World Cup Qualifier, and should've made it to the World Cup ahead of the West Indies or Afghanistan were it not for two dodgy umpiring decisions.

Scotland were absolutely thrashed in a One Day match against Oman earlier this year. They still beat Oman overall, but it was a demonstration of the closeness of Associate cricket. Oman did not have ODI status at the time - they have now just topped the table in the final World Cricket League tournament, ahead of Namibia (who have never had ODI status apart from the 2003 World Cup), the USA (who only had ODI status at the 2004 Champions Trophy) and PNG (who regain ODI status after coming 9th at the WCQ). Canada and Hong Kong finished in the bottom two thanks to PNG rolling the previously unbeaten Oman - this not long after the Honkers had beaten Afghanistan in the Asia Cup, the same Afghanistan who will be at the World Cup, and nearly beat India in the same tournament. They, a team good enough to beat one of the ten teams at the World Cup, are now the 22nd ranked One Day side in the world, and yet apparently we should only have a World Cup with 10 or 12 or 14 teams?

A lot has changed since 2007, when it wasn't even the fault of the Associates that India dropped out (they lost to full member Bangladesh). The Associates are now a lot more competitive than they were then, despite the ever-dwindling resources thrown their way by the ICC, thanks to the full members taking bigger chunks out of the pie. Watch the Rugby World Cup this year, and see how they have managed to put an entirely reasonable 20-team World Cup together. Cricket should do the same.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

More important than the WC imo is even just more games against full members.

I think both are needed. The WC only offers it short term, but it gives a profile and potential sponsorship boost in nations where the sport is otherwise unknown to the public.

 

[Damon_3388]

Top 16 ranked ODI countries (as of 6 months out)
4 groups of 4, play each other once, top 2 teams from each group advance to a final 8
Final 8 knockout

Playing two games per day (eg. 1v2 from Group A and 3v4 from Group A on day 1, 1v2 from Group B and 3v4 from Group B on day 2, etc.), you can still give teams a couple of days break between games, and get the group stage done in 12 days, have a rest day, play two days of two games each in the knockouts, have another rest day, play both semis on the same day, a further rest day, and then the final. The whole tournament would be done in 19 days (or three weeks, if you wanted to have an opening/closing ceremony day each, just for fun), and the finalists would only have to play six one-dayers in 19 days, which isn't a tough or demanding schedule in the slightest.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Rugby (Union) World Cup has 20 teams this year. I get why - spread the game etc - but that doesn't make the reality of one-sided and shit games less real. People won't watch those anymore. They don't watch them for the same reason they don't go watch the local suburban team of nobodies.

FIFA World Cup gets away with 32 and soon 48 teams as there's genuinely that many countries with quality professional players.

 

[The Speaker]

Rugby (Union) World Cup has 20 teams this year. I get why - spread the game etc - but that doesn't make the reality of one-sided and shit games less real. People won't watch those anymore. They don't watch them for the same reason they don't go watch the local suburban team of nobodies.

FIFA World Cup gets away with 32 and soon 48 teams as there's genuinely that many countries with quality professional players.

Putting aside the "bad games" theory (which I'm not so sure would hold up to scrutiny when it comes to ODIs), how many teams do you think should be at the World Cup then?

 

[Bomberboyokay]

12 I guess. There's only about 10 countries where every player picked is professional.

 

[The Speaker]

12 I guess. There's only about 10 countries where every player picked is professional.

Do you mean mean professional as in their only job is to play cricket?

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Do you mean mean professional as in their only job is to play cricket?

Yes

 

[eth-dog]

There are 12 test playing nations. Spread them over 4 groups according to ranking. From there have one or two associate nations per group fill the rest.

Group A: England, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Nepal, USA
Group B: India, Australia, West Indies, Netherlands, Namibia
Group C: New Zealand, Pakistan, Ireland, UAE, Oman
Group D: South Africa, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Scotland, Papua New Guinea

Everyone plays each other once, from there QF, SF, F. 45 games total.

 

[The Speaker]

Yes

It's definitely much more than 10 teams, then. All the full members have fully professional first-class systems, although you can put an asterisk next to Zimbabwe at the moment just because they can't really pay their players and their domestic structure is falling apart. So that's already at least 11.

Scotland and the Netherlands are definitely fully professional, thanks to county cricket for the former and long-standing club patrons for the latter. From there it gets a bit trickier to see through the foliage, but I'd be pretty confident that Nepal is fully professional despite their incompetent board. PNG has a competent board and given the amount of funding headed their way I'm fairly certain their core group are all centrally contracted. The UAE, and now Oman, are harder to tell due to the way their cricket works, but I know the UAE has some centrally contracted players. Namibia has central contracts, and was playing in the South African domestic season until this year, and now probably will again with their new ODI status and extra resources. And the US has deliberately brought in professional players from the Caribbean and has the resources for central contracts (with generous ICC assistance). The two teams that narrowly missed out on ODI status, Hong Kong and Canada, both have had central contracts too, though those are probably up in the air now.

In essence, you have to be fully professional to be a full member, which is already 12* nations. There'd be four more (Scotland, Netherlands, Nepal, PNG) who I'm very confident are fully pro, with the first three having professional leagues and PNG having just central contracts. The remaining four are probably fully professional or will be now.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Are the Netherlands players on TV there?

 

[The Speaker]

Are the Netherlands players on TV there?

They have been when the World Cup is on, but that's a very strange definition of "professional".

 

[Bomberboyokay]

They have been when the World Cup is on, but that's a very strange definition of "professional".

Where else would the money come from.

 

[The Speaker]

Where else would the money come from.

Club contracts, from sponsors.
International contracts, from the board, which gets its money from the ICC and sponsors - just like all the full members.

No idea why you're trying to argue this, other than for the sake of it.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

I don't follow professional French club rugby but I know it's real. I've never heard of professional Dutch cricketers, in the Netherlands, until today. Professional sport with no TV money sounds odd.

 

[The Speaker]

I don't follow professional French club rugby but I know it's real. I've never heard of professional Dutch cricketers, in the Netherlands, until today. Professional sport with no TV money sounds odd.

Thankfully the definition of "professional cricketer" isn't bound by your imagination.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Sounds like you're pretending Dutch cricket is something it isn't.

 

[big_e]

Rugby (Union) World Cup has 20 teams this year. I get why - spread the game etc - but that doesn't make the reality of one-sided and shit games less real. People won't watch those anymore. They don't watch them for the same reason they don't go watch the local suburban team of nobodies.

FIFA World Cup gets away with 32 and soon 48 teams as there's genuinely that many countries with quality professional players.

The way for those teams to improve, close the gap and then compete on the same level is for them to play better teams.

Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Ireland have all become test nations in part because of their performance in World Cups.

It's short term pain for massive long term benefit.

 

[The Speaker]

Sounds like you're pretending Dutch cricket is something it isn't.

I'm beyond caring about this. If you don't want to believe that any team outside the "10" employs a team of professional cricketers, go for it. You don't appear to see this sport in anything other than monetary terms anyway, so who I am to attempt to set you straight?

 

[The Speaker]

I was going to bump this later, but seeing the direction of the discussion in the WC general discussion thread appears to be veering towards this I thought it's probably worth having this available to attack/defend the current format in.

But then that goes to the other point I made which is you are rewarding many mediocre teams with spots in the next round.

We can do this a million times and the same issue remains there are only four teams playing decent consistent cricket right now so it's either this format with dead rubbers or a format that allows poor sides to progress simply because there are extra even worse sides for them to beat.

Every format will look ordinary when the gap between the top four and the rest is this big.

Two groups of five into semi-finals could've dealt with that particular issue.