World Cup 2019, Days 1-3: Early days, One-sided games

 

World Cup 2019

Days 1-3: Early days, One-sided games

June 2^nd 2019

Recent World Cups have been like the Hundred Years War. Gone are the compact tournaments of the early editions. Who remembers that the first World Cup consisted of just fifteen matches: two groups of four, all play all once, Semi-Finals and a Final. The 1979 tournament had the same format. The 2019 tournament has no fewer than 45 group matches – FOURTY-FIVE – to pick four semi-finalists and that with the tournament reduced, controversially, to just ten teams to make it more compact and reduce the number of one-sided matches.

Of course, three days and four matches in, we have seen only one-sided matches. Two have been brief and so utterly uncompetitive that only the most ardent of supporters would have got much satisfaction from them. The other two were one-sided, but at least had some moments of competitivity.

A pattern is threatening to emerge. In all four matches, the side batting first has struggled to set a competitive total. England struggled over 300 thanks to a late flourish and that proved to be enough but, of the rest, Afghanistan’s 207 has proved the best effort.

Today, South Africa play their second match of the tournament before all ten sides have even played their first. In the all-play-all league, you would reckon that three defeats or fewer will most likely see you qualify. With four defeats, other results have to fall your way to get through. Five defeats and you are out. So, we could see the somewhat bizarre situation in which a side has two defeats and can only afford one more, before India have even played their first game. If you are a South African, you will be nervous of losing the Toss, batting and finding yourself 60-5 before the ground has filled with the late arrivals.

Four games are too few to prove a case, but a few eyebrows were raised at the 10:30am starts (of course, Australia and Afghanistan had an afternoon start, so only three of the games have begun at 10:30am). Some years back, England’s 60-over (as it was then) competition experimented with 10:30 starts to avoid twilight finishes. In September, this involved starting while the grass was still thick with morning dew. It led to the most ridiculously one-sided contests and to otherwise fairly anonymous fast-medium bowlers looking like world-class quicks.

Of course, England in early June is a totally different case to England in September. In early June, the Sun rises in Cardiff at 5am (today, it is at 05:01 while, in Manchester, further north, it is a quarter of an hour earlier still), so the pitch has had five and a half hours to dry in the Sun before the start. However, it still makes a few people nervous to think that the Toss may have such a large influence on the result, even if logic says that the dew should have long-dried at the start.

The reason why this “reduced” competition, with no Associates, is still so ridiculously long is twofold.

One, is the obvious one. Back in the West Indies in 2007, sixteen sides played 51 matches, just three fewer than this version, with six more sides playing, but Ireland had the bad taste to eliminate Pakistan in the Group Stage and Bangladesh did the unforgiveable and eliminated India in another group. This led to a Super Eight stage with no guaranteed game between India and Pakistan and with two sides that were far weaker than the rest. Despite Sri Lanka reaching the Final with some, frequently brilliant play, Asian fans switched off. TV revenues plummeted and the bean-counters decided that this situation had to be avoided at all costs in future editions.

So, we have moved to a format in which a single shock result will no long determine long-term success or failure. There have been various formats used at different times. When there are just three group games, one shock result and some back weather can eliminate a side. So, one option was for aides to play each other twice: Ireland (for example) might beat a top side once, but logic states that they are unlikely to raise their game so high several times. So, having each team play six group matches makes it far more likely that the top sides will qualify.

However, this leads us to the second reason for the all-play-all league: it guarantees an India v Pakistan match, probably the rivalry with the greatest fan-base of any sporting event in the world. And, what is more, it is a match with qualification hanging on it, but not the be all and end all of the tournament: with luck, the results will pan-out in such a way that the rivals meet again in the Semi-Final or, even better, the Final. From the point of view of the marketing men, it maximises TV revenue.

However, even a tournament that features 45 matches to eliminate just six teams, could still be made compact. Why does the tournament last more than six weeks, from May 30^th to July 14^th?

The answer is that, unlikely the early tournaments, when two or even three games were played each day at different grounds, with occasional exceptions, just one match is played per day. In the soccer World Cup, we get three and sometimes even four matches per day to complete the Group Stage quickly and to get on to the more exciting, knock-out stage. With so many matches played so quickly, early tournaments went to small grounds around the country. One of the greatest matches of all time in the World Cup was played at Tunbridge Wells, with no TV coverage at all – India came back from 17-5, thanks to Kapil Dev’s 175*, to beat Zimbabwe narrowly as the Zimbabwean chase ended just short. Tunbridge Wells is not even a regular venue for Kent, but it produced a classic.

Of course, again, broadcasting revenues are the reason for the scheduling. Unlike in soccer, the fan-base is not wide enough spread around the world to support several fixtures being played simultaneously and still produce big audience figures.

It all adds up to a tournament that will not come alive until late-June. Right now, there is still the feeling that, even if you lose your first two matches, or three of the first four, you are still alive in the tournament. The excitement will not start until each game has something hanging from it, not just the early jockeying for position that we see in a 10000 metres race.

With such one-sided matches, the take-aways are limited thus far. England found the conditions that the doubters said would be their undoing, but still managed to win comfortably. Australia dispatched Afghanistan with some comfort, even if the Afghan middle-order showed that, if they are given a base to build from, they could be a major force. Pakistan showed the frailties that Pakistan so often show – but remember how the first time that they won the tournament, England dismissed them for 77 in the Group Stages and, had rain not intervened, they would have been eliminated. The West Indian pace attack has revived comparisons with the early tournaments, New Zealand have done what New Zealand do: win, without being flashy, passing under the radar. And Sri Lanka have just looked so out of sorts that one fears for their chances of putting up any kind of performance. And then there is South Africa, who must have been mighty satisfied to limit England to 311, but did not even get close to their target.

Bangladesh play today. India debut tomorrow. By the end of the week things may look so different, but one suspects that the first three or four group games for each side will be probing, without great fireworks, as sides try different things to get points on the board and get used to the conditions and to the pitches which, thus far, are not the expected batsman-friendly tracks producing 420 plays 400 scorecards.