There are many World Cups that I have liked, but as far as cricket World Cups are concerned, I feel that I am going to like the 2019 World Cup more than the others. The main reason is that it will have no minnows and the games can only get better. Yes, we are love an upset and cheer when underdogs win. But when they are ruthlessly trashed by the opponents on too many occasions and they also make us wonder about the quality of the game, it is not case.
It is a forward step by the International Cricket Council, and I would like to welcome it. There is no need to add more and more teams which can’t play good enough cricket just to increase the number of teams and to let certain cricketers score centuries and get easy wickets. The players who can never hit an overseas century or can’t score more than a run-a-ball against the good teams might find this interesting, but otherwise, it is not a good idea to increase the number of teams.
Talking about the lesser teams, they have to raise their level, and only then should they be allowed in the World Cup. After all, this is a cup featuring the best, and not just some dumb tournament. It should be like, prove yourself and get in. For a beginning, there can be just eight slots. Yes, you heard it right. There is too much miserable cricket going on right now, and some teams need to improve or perish. They shouldn’t take their test status as a guarantee, but just a compliment.
Only the top six ranked teams should be allowed straight into the World Cup, with number seven, eight, nine and ten made to play a qualifying tournament with the associate members. The total number of teams can be eight, with two teams from this competition joining the group of teams, putting them into two pools. Only top two teams from each group should qualify. As the number of matches do decrease, may be the teams can play each other twice and thus also make sure that more consistent team gets in.
The 2019 Cricket World Cup will have ten teams already there, among which only eight of the top ones having a clear place (including the hosts England). The rest will play in the 2018 Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Bangladesh which is only fair in making the game of cricket better and of a higher standard. If someone needs to score some runs of take a lot of wickets against the weaker teams, just be at the lower level of rankings – don’t bother the teams playing high standard cricket.
There should be no matches without results. It doesn’t matter whether it rains or the lights go. There should be more than one reserve day. After all, it will be a tournament of the best then. May be Kenya can make a return here. Do you remember them coming second in their group and even doing enough to get into the semi-finals? There is no team like that now, and only the strong teams get stronger and hopes to destroy these teams with ease. So these teams should prove that they are at least as good as the last ranked test playing nations.
When the level of Zimbabwe has only gone down from the past, Bangladesh seems to be coming up with a big slap against the ICC which gave them the test status when they were not ready. The former has gone through some turbulent times, but it is time for them to come back and return to the competitive team that they had often been. The latter should do a lot better than this with the talent and the support of the fans – just defeating a test playing nation on World Cup is not enough. There will be improvement if these two teams are made to earn their place rather than being guaranteed the same.
*If you want to globalize cricket, you need to stop being selfish. It includes not using these teams as the means to score big runs, take wickets and attain huge victories. It doesn’t prove anything. Help them, provide them some assistance with training as well as money, and play some good practice matches with them. May be some of their players can have some chances in the IPL. Ireland is a team with so much potential – I hope one of these over hyped teams is thrown out and they get in for the next World Cup. May be after letting them play with a team like India A and manage to compete with them regularly and even defeat them, we can talk about a fourteen team or even twenty eight team Cricket World Cup with a big qualifier featuring half of the total teams. ***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Page of ICC Cricket World Cup on Facebook.
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