Yeah, you don’t need to be a genius to figure this one out. And yes, there have been several articles written on this already. But what the hell, one more doesn’t hurt.

The FIFA Football World Cup lasts about four weeks. It involves 32 teams divided into eight groups. From almost all the continents. By comparison, the current cricket world cup took about seven weeks and had half the number of teams. The one obvious difference is the length of the games. A football game lasts ninety minutes plus stoppage time. In the knock-out stages you get the odd game with extra time and penalty shootouts but the game still gets over in less time than one innings in a typical game of cricket. This allows FIFA to schedule several matches in a day. They have four or more games per day with a pair of games kicking off together. So you have two time slots with two games per slot. With this system in place, the group stages get over in a hurry even if they occupy a large section of the tournament. With cricket, it’s just not possible. Each game takes 8 hours to complete and as such, organizers are unwilling to stage more than two games in a day. How will you show these games? It’s not like you can start late and get away with it. If the games aren’t shown live, sponsors won’t pay the organizers anything. What can they do? Selective broadcasting. If you have more than two games a day, show country-specific games. For example, if India play Pakistan, give the game priority for Indian and Pakistani viewers. Show other games if you have other stations available or as highlights packages. Hell, they went down to a game a day for the Super 8s!

You get down to sixteen teams and from then on, it’s a knock-out format all the way up to the final for football. I think this is where the cricket world cup is screwing up. Instead of moving straight to a knock-out format from the group stages, they go to another group stage. They call it the Super Sixes or the Super Eights or whatever but we all know these are less than super. With confusing rules and points carrying over from the group stages, the Super whatevers ruin the party. To make things worse, circumstances allowed Kenya to get to the semi-final last time around. This time, Bangladesh and Ireland made it through although India and Pakistan were not up to scratch this year. If the organizers are still wondering why no one was coming to watch the games, look no further than India and Pakistan bowing out after three games each.

One way to fix this is to reduce the number of overs in one-day cricket. To be honest, I no longer sit 8 hours watching a game. I used to but it ends up being a colossal waste of time. Cut back down to twenty or thirty overs and have a bunch of games everyday in a world cup. With shorter games, the crowd is more likely to be entertained. You know how they’re going to have a Twenty20 World Cup? Yeah? Make that the main event and scrap the current format.

With each team playing up to seven games in the Super stage, it’s no wonder that the WC was long. So for a team to go all the way, it meant playing 3+7+2 = 12 games. Over seven weeks, that’s not much. But imagine if we cut out the Super stage and instead go with a knock-out format after the group stages. The top eight teams would then play in the quarter-finals (4×2). Winners move to the semis (2×2). Those winners play the final. So you have 4+2+1 = 7 games in total after the group stages! This WC would be over in a reasonable amount of time. How they organize the groups and decide on the quarter-finalists is up to them. You can have two groups sending four teams each. Or four groups sending two teams each. WC 96 anyone? India-Pak quarter-final? In a high-pressure situation, we saw a fantastic game of cricket. Tempers flared, bowlers took a beating, and India finally claimed victory after Pakistan had started well. “Do-or-die” situations usually produce good games.

Of course, the ICC is going to take the lessons from this world cup and ruin the next edition as well. I lost interest this year after India went out. But one contributing factor to the lack of interest was the utter lack of good games. The Australians have now won 29 of their last 29 WC games. It’s a streak that has seen them lift three world cups in a row. Seriously, cricket is slowly turning into a boring spectacle. The Aussie juggernaut shows no sign of slowing down and the ICC needs to evaluate what’s happening with other teams in world cricket. Why did England, who beat the Aussies in their own backyard earlier this year, not even manage a semi-final spot? Why do the South Africans continue to flounder in big tournaments when it counts? And what happened to Bob Woolmer?

This past Wednesday, I went to see a baseball game - The New York Mets hosted the St. Louis Cardinals. This happens to be my first ever live baseball game and I was psyched. I had seen the Shea Stadium from the road when I was going to La Guardia Airport once, but to see it up close was terrific. As we were walking towards our entrance gate, we saw Mick Foley (a.k.a. Mankind from the WWE) walking in the crowd. He was limping a bit - probably because of his bloody SummerSlam match with Ric Flair. The attendance that day was almost 50k and the crowd was enthusiastic. Our seats were almost near the top but were right above the home plate so we could see all the action clearly. Depth perception was way off as time and again a hit looked like going for a home run only to end up as a foul or an out.

The Cardinals batted first and scored nothing in their first innings. The Mets responded with 4 runs in their first. As the game went on, the Mets built up a 10-4 lead and it looked like game-over for the Cards. However, they put up a brave fight and clawed their way back to make it 10-8.

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403-0. Another India-Pakistan series has begun. And, as was the case in 2004, Pakistan has done everything to let the world know that “sporting” wickets with pace and bounce and what not. India started the first Test with Sehwag hammering his way to 309 at Multan. Pakistan lost that game and India had one foot in the door. Second Test witnessed a green top at Lahore (If I remember correctly!). Pakistan won easily thanks to a good spell by Umar Gul and leveled the series. Third Test, another one-sided contest, with India sealing the series 2-1. India had created history and left Paskitan searching for scapegoats.

Coming back to 2006, Lahore is the venue of the first Test. We were promised a fast, bouncy wicket. One that would assist the Pakistani pacers. After the battering the Indian bowling received (679/7), I feared the worst. But at the end of day 4, it’s quite clear that the fears of bouncy tracks were uncalled for. The pitch is dead as a dodo - a bowlers’ graveyard. With the Sehwag-Dravid partnership 11 runs away from a record, after having broken several others, the officials are ducking for cover. I wonder why they try to make such an issue out of it. If they think they will intimidate the Indians by promising pacey wickets, then they’re obviously mistaken. And then, by not living up to the hype, they’re simply shooting themselves in the foot.

Then, we come to the issue of the Pakistani bowlers being better than the Indian bowlers. Maybe. The scoreline certainly tells a different story. After 75 overs, India’s run rate is at 5.37 and no wickets have fallen. This has been achieved by judicious shot selection, not manic batting as was the case with Afridi and Akmal. All that talk of Shoaib Akhtar running through the Indian batting line-up has fallen flat on its face. Even after resorting to sledging, all Pakistan got were more boundaries. One look at the faces on Inzy and his fast bowlers told the story. They had been bludgeoned by Viru. The short balls were left alone. The ones wide of off-stump were ferociously cut away. Fuller length deliveries were exquisitely driven and the spinners lofted over the infield.

I’m sure the Indian openers are enjoying themselves in the middle. They’re probably wondering where that bouncy track went to. Maybe Faisalabad? Well, the promises have been made yet again. Since this one is as good as over, and the result not favoring Pakistan, what can we expect from the next one? Some grass, most certainly. While that would assist the Pak fast bowlers, don’t underestimate the Indians. And it’s quite clear that both teams struggle with their batting when faced with green tops. If only the Indian attack can bowl a tight line, Pakistan will have problems of their own to deal with. So who will win? Let the weather decide!

Ok, let me admit straight up that I think the selectors were wrong in dropping Ganguly. He deserved another chance after making 79 in the 2 innings at Delhi. Give the man one final run - if he flounders, that’s the end of his career; if he gets runs, well, then good for the team, right? And mind you, he has been kept in the team for like 2 years just for captaincy - his last 2 years have yielded hardly anything meaningful from his bat.

Now coming to the real issue at hand: politics in the BCCI. Right. Like it’s anything new. The BCCI has always had people who were politicians along with being administrators. Dalmiya has always been one and now we have Sharad Pawar. Guess what, he is a POLITICIAN!!! Surprise!! People seriously have nothing to do it seems. First protestors took to Kolkata’s streets to voice their disagreement. Agreed that Ganguly shouldn’t have been dropped, it was the selectors’ decision and you ought to respect it. Ganguly never said anything about the issue - it’s just people with nothing better to do shouting slogans. People from Kolkata have always been a passionate bunch. They love their cricket but at the same time, they cannot stand anything that doesn’t go according to plan. Remember the 96 World Cup semi-final? The India-Pakistan test match? And recently the India-SA game? Yes, Ganguly has done great things for India in the past. But it is time to move on. One cannot keep riding on past performances. Now before you start saying that others like Sachin aren’t as good as they were earlier, please check the stats. Sachin has done way better than Ganguly and is more than capable of producing scintillating and/or meticulous innings fairly often. And also, nowadays, when Ganguly gets runs, he gets them at painfully slow strike-rates. He is fighting for survival but he cannot jeopardize the team’s chances. And now Somnath Chatterjee says that he will bring up the Ganguly issue in the Parliament. You want to keep politics out of cricket? Well, raising the issue in the Parliament is great way to do it - what with 500+ politicians sitting together. Or better yet, why not let Sharad Pawar & Jagmohan Dalmiya be elected? They’re great people to keep politics out.

While many past cricketers have expressed their support for Ganguly, it’s only Bengali politicians that have supported him outside of cricket. Regional bias anyone?

Furthermore, Mr. Sharad Pawar doesn’t even know all 15 players. Does he even know what cricket is all about? Why did he run for BCCI President? Perhaps to embezzle some of the truck loads of money that the BCCI makes each year. High time that past cricketers and able administrators took control of the BCCI. Do away with 5 selectors from 5 different regions.

I might add more here as the issue develops. Right now, I’m too tired and need to sleep.

Interesting question, right? It’s all around. Everyone is talking about this issue. So, who should open? Let’s look at the contenders:
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1. VVS Laxman: Some experience as opener in Tests. Bad record as opener though. Hasn’t opened the innings in a long time but does a good job at No. 3. Attacking once he gets going and he might be able make good use of the first 15 overs. However, suspect running between the wickets might cost India.

2. MS Dhoni: Probably the most likely to open. Attacking batsman and just scored 88 in a practice game. Opening with Sehwag would mean attack from both ends as far as India’s batting goes. Also good at No. 3 in case he comes in and India needs a move on.

3. Yuvraj Singh: In my opinion, least likely to open. He best suits the late middle order as he can come in towards the end of the match and score quick runs.

4. Suresh Raina: The Indians might pull off a surprise by getting the youngster to open. Will put tremendous pressure on the debutant but could also be a great chance for him to prove his talent. Again, an attacking player.

Who do I think will open? I vote for Dhoni. He is in good form and attacks from the word go. As far as India’s chances in the tournament go, I can say for sure it will be India-SL in the final. Predicting the winner is tough