Cup needs some fire

24 March 2015 - 09:42 By Ross Tucker
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Doctor Know: Ross Tucker
Doctor Know: Ross Tucker
Image: Times Media Group

The Cricket World Cup dream remains alive, the "curse" of having never won a knockout match lifted with a crushing win over Sri Lanka.

At least, it's lifted for now. New Zealand have not won a World Cup semifinal in six attempts - so when we face the Black Caps tomorrow, one nation will break its curse, the other will see it continue, albeit in a potentially different guise (the semi-final curse).

Other than Protea-centred interest, this World Cup has delivered very little intrigue and too many one-sided demolitions.

I cannot remember a global competition so devoid of match or tournament suspense.

This is partly due to the format - when you split 14 teams into two pools, three of them in each pool will be relatively weaker nations - either new to high-level cricket or playing it infrequently.

That means, firstly, that truly competitive matches are too isolated to develop an intriguing tournament "plot". Then, a quarterfinal format allowed four teams from each pool to qualify, which meant that basically none of those infrequent matches between the Test-playing nations in the pool stage mattered for qualification purposes.

They represented little more than shuffling predictable cards in a pack to pair teams up for the quarterfinals. Only England's abject performances provided a plot twist for the first month, while weather created some suspense for South Africans, when Australia's demolition of Scotland was threatened by rain, potentially exposing us to the hosts in our quarterfinal.

Plot weakness aside, individual matches have not delivered competitive results.

This is inevitable when small nations come up against the brilliance and experience of an AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc or Kumar Sangakarra.

Victories by as much as 250 runs (Australia vs Afghanistan and SA vs Ireland) or with over 30 overs remaining (India vs UAE; Australia vs Scotland) become a fixture of this cricket showpiece.

However, the problem is that even matches featuring the stronger teams fizzled out. Only nine of 45 matches have gone into territory where either team could have won with 10 overs remaining.

Only three of those nine involved two Test-playing countries.

The quarterfinals, pitting the world's top eight teams, lasted only 126 out of a potential 200 overs in the second innings, with the tightest result being Australia's six-wicket victory over Pakistan.

The other three were effectively dead at the change of innings.

It's typical in a Fifa World Cup of matches being won 4-0. And yes, Germany battered Brazil in 2014, but that was noteworthy for its rarity.

At the CWC 2015, it has been the norm. What is more, I'd bet 90% of cricket followers would have correctly picked the four semifinalists before the tournament began.

We've thus witnessed four weeks of curtainraisers posing as competitive matches, and now three "anything-can-happen" knockout matches decide the champions.

Whether the dearth of competitive matches is an incorrect perception on my part or a real trend in ODI cricket would make for an interesting analysis.

One change that has arguably occurred is that the risk versus reward balance when batting has changed.

Better bats, rule changes and improved pitches have tilted the balance heavily in favour of batsmen, and a shift in attitude has followed.

The new mindset, best summed up as innovation and risk, means that 300 is the new 250. However, I suspect it also means scores of 100-7 after 20 overs occur more often, especially when chasing 350.

Without circumspection in batting, it has become "all or nothing" - the West Indies' attempt to chase 394 against New Zealand illustrated this perfectly.

More often than not, it's "nothing", at least in terms of excitement.

Perhaps the semifinals will finally ignite six weeks of cricket, maybe with some Protea Fire. The tournament certainly needs it.

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