A World Cup or a Qualifying Tournament?

ICC is getting some unwanted feedback from fans all over the world for such a miserable start of the mega event amid mismanagement in tickets sale, poor planning and match fixing allegations. Almost two weeks have passed but the much hyped cricket mega event has yet to make an impact on the sports loving fans. It look more a qualifying tournament than a cricket world cup, with records tumbling, thrashing of minnows and one sided and boring contests. Current week’s matches are an example as how poorly the mega event has been planned by the cricket’s global body. To lessen the harsh feedback ICC has leaked the rumors that associate nations would not get a chance to play in the next world cup, as 2015 mega event would be restricted to only the test playing nations.

Only 4 out of 14 matches played so far have justified the definition of a match all others have been miserable mis-matches. Irony is that this would not end soon as we have 4 more mis-matches in fixtures for the week with England taking on Ireland, South Africa playing Netherlands, Pakistan clash with Canada and New Zealand vs Zimbabwe to follow. I do not understand the logic behind the inclusion of associate teams in the biggest event of the game. ICC argues that their inclusion is an effort to make cricket more popular by involving more and more teams but do they really care about the future of cricket? If they have to give minnows a chance to play at the top level then why did they not include their matches against gibber opponents in ICC calendar? ICC is aiming for just making money and more money; they are concerned with wealth and more wealth nothing more than this. The example is the bookie’s sponsored IPL which was exposed by Lalit Modi case.

Apart from mis-matches the rumors of match fixing are also of great concerns for the mega event. There are reports suggesting ICC ACU is investigating into Australian team slow start during AUS-ZIM match. Mahela Jayawerdene has been suspected for spot fixing by Sril Lankan press. England India match is under spotlight as Shane Warne tweeted before the match that it would end in a tie. I was quite confused at the way English team played from a position of 280/2 needing 59 to win from 7 overs. Given the misery of Indian bowling attack they should have easily got the target but they were content to play a tie.

Although a tie ends the match fixing chances but ICC should investigate the match to keep the tournament as transparent as possible. It should also be taken into consideration that Shane Warne pre match prediction was prediction of man who faced bans for alleged match fixing, currently involved in IPL thus he would surely have links with bookies till now.

The big questions looming over world cup are why the mis-matches have been planned in the very beginning of the tournament? Would ICC investigate the allegation of match fixing as the same ICC has done it successfully against Pakistan trio? Would the world cup be successful if Sri and India got an early exit? What would happen if Pakistan got to play in Semis at Chandigarh against India?