Durhamfootman wrote:world cups have always been stupidly long winded
anyone would think they were trying to maximise the number of beans they can make, for the bean counters to count
Agree. It's an utterly ludicrous schedule, compounded by the fact that the associates have been barred from the tournament. Lots of matches between not very many teams = barmy in my view.
I guess the only argument in favour is that it will even out bad luck - even the best team can have an off day, get a couple of marginal decisions or go up against a bowler who gets on a perfect roll, and wind up 60-5 after 15, with the match effectively a foregone conclusion thereafter. ODIs are somewhat unpredictable like that - while the best team will win more often than not, any team in the top 8 can beat any other team if everything goes their way. A long tournament makes it more likely that the four genuinely best teams in the tournament will compete in the semis, and reduces the chance that a single off-day or bad performance will ruin a team's chances.
Still stupid, I say. If you are going to win a world tournament, you should be capable of performing at the top of your game when you need to - you shouldn't need a second life. But I think since the 2007 World Cup, when India crashed and burned out of an un-loseable group stage, the ICC has basically tried to set up the format to guarantee that its biggest cash cows will play plenty of games, rather than provide a genuine spectacle of high class cricket that is inclusive of the whole world.