ICC World Cup 2011 ‘on the way it was designed for’

ICC World Cup 2011 ‘on the way it was designed for’

It is an universal phenomenon that the lesser always go to the wall and strong ones are always destined to excel. All systems, whether political, social or religious, favour the haves at the cost of haves not. The same theory seems to at work during the 10^th ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 that is patterned on such format as supports the first-tier and big teams while the minnows are just supposed to add victory tags in the record lists of the former.

International Cricket Council (ICC), the sole cricket managing body of the world, devised the fixtures format of this tournament in a very tricky way that was set to support only the bigwigs. Taking a glance over the fixtures table, it is vivid that the six small teams were scheduled to play all matches of the initial round against the eight strong teams. Below is the list of fixtures to endorse this point.

• Bangladesh played four of its group matches against India, West Indies, England and South Africa.
• Kenya played four of its group matches against Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
• Canada played four of its group matches against Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia.
• Ireland played four of its group matches against England, India, West Indies and South Africa.
• Netherlands played four of its group matches against England, West Indies, South Africa and India.
• Zimbabwe played four of its group games against Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

It was clearly and unfair allocation by the ICC that knew well the history, records and status of the lesser teams whom bringing in front of the cricket hawks was no more than a heinous policy to advantage the big teams. Most of the analysts and cricket thinks that it was preplanned to take only strong ones to the quarter-finals round at the cost of the minnows.

It is evident from the fact that only the big 8 has qualified for the knockouts. From Group A, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka while from Group B, South Africa, India, England and West Indies have succeeded in making inroads to the superior round. The small 6 have been cornered and kiched out of the tournament in a very treacherous manner. Thus the tournament is running on the track it was designed for.

It seems highly erroneous as the minnows have no stamina and skill to face and defend them against the big cricketing nations that have profuse talent, vast field experience and out of the way tactics. It is the reason this World Cup is going as bland and drab. Most of the matches had been one-sided, the ground were found empty in during the above-mentioned games and the expected thrill was nowhere except a few matches.

Adding insult to injury, the ICC has formulated a plan to oust all the minnows from the next edition of the World Cup and reduce the number of participants from current 14 to 10. It shows as the ICC has no interest and policy to improve and promote the cricket of the lesser. Kicking them out of the tournament for an indefinite period of time simply means to discourage and dump their plenty of unripe and unpolished talents that have potential to give marvelous cricket to the world.