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Cricket

Anatomy of a flop

By: Santosh :+: Under: Cricket, Sports, World Cup 2007
On: ⋅ May 2, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Remember “Roop ki Rani Choron ka Raja” (RKRCKR)? I dont. Actually I do, but for all the wrong reasons. The year was 1993. The movie was overhyped, way overpriced, featured aging stars and had a predictable and lacklusture script. It sank at the box office faster than you could say “Anil Kapoor’s moustache”. It is to date known as one of the biggest disasters in Bollywood. Hollywood is no stranger to this phenomena either.

Fast forward 14 years. We had on our hands another big time event that was the Cricket World Cup. The hype was immense. This was the first ever world cup to be held in the Carribean. The Carribean nations hosting the World Cups matches were set to be invaded by throngs of visitors especially from the sub-continent. The event featured a list of 16 teams instead of the customary 12. A total of 51 matches were set to be played over 47 days. The defending champions Australia has a relatively tepid start to the year and it was general consensus that the trophy was ripe for the picking, maybe by one of the big three teams from the sub-continent India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka. Blatant jingoism was the order of the day as television commercials, news reports, talk shows, media, politicians and even Bollywood stars openly rooted and in some cases even predicted India to win it all. And finally, this was to be the swansong for a host of aging stars - Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Glenn McGrath, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Sanath Jayasuriya and others.

However, as it transpired none of this would take place as planned and this edition of the Cricket World Cup would become the RKRCKR (refer to first line) of Cricket World Cups.

Playing to empty stands - ICC ishtyle
img: via TOI Online

What started out as arguably the biggest sporting event of the year quickly turned into (to quote Lemony Snicket) “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. From the outset, the world cup was beset by problems of low crowd attendance. Given the rich tradition of crowds and pageantry in cricketing venues across the Carribean, the blame for this low attendance squarely lies on the shoulder of the organizers and ICC, who besides upping the price on admission also placed restrictions on outside food, drinks and musical instruments, which are an integral part of Carribean cricketing culture.

Over 85% of the matches in the entire World Cup were no where close to competitive - in 41 of 47 matches, winning teams batting first won by 50 or more runs and winning teams batting last won by 6 or more wickets in hand. Barring some upsets in the league stages, Ireland over Pakistan and Bangladesh over India, and one major upset in the knockout stages, Bangladesh over South Africa, most matches were lopsided, as evident from the statistics.

The quality of cricket and lack of fan attendance was compounded by the early exit of pre-tournament favorites and crows pullers - India and Pakistan, both of whom were beat fair and square in the league stages but had a big impact on the tournament nonetheless. The poor showing of the host team, West Indies, also reduced the appeal of the tournament.

Misery loves company: Woolmer’s death cast a shadow over an already ailing World Cup tournament
img: via BBC online

Bob Woolmer’s death, now recognized as a murder, was the proverbial nail in the coffin for the 2007 World Cup. Following Pakistan’s early exit, Woolmer was found unconsious in his hotel room and died later. His death under suspicious circumstances brought to light the ugly involvment of bookies in the game of cricket.

Cricket World Cup finals have been notoriously lopsided. This one was no different. However, the controversy over the 2007 World Cup finals’ ending was a disgrace to the profession of umpiring and to the game in general.

End verdict: Maybe hindsight is 20/20 but the 2007 edition of the Cricket World Cup, was a flop.

The ritual of the four-yearly World Cup seems to be at a crossroads and so is the game of cricket. Australia have asserted their complete dominance over the game of cricket like the Eye of Sauron casting it’s evil shadow over Middle Earth. Three consecutive World Cup wins will do that. Even, Sri Lanka the finalists, are nowhere close to their World Cup winning team, who were incidentally the last team not named Australia to hoist the World Cup.

Cricket is in the need for a desperate makeover. Maybe the solution is to:
1. Even out the distribution of the talent pool by making it a league of teams like European club soccer instead of a league of nations and still conduct the World Cup every 4 years like FIFA.
2. Do away with the monstority otherwise known as the Duckworth-Lewis rule.
3. While this is highly unlikely to happen because of the morality police, work towards legalizing gambling in the sub-continent, which will reduce the impact of illegal bookies.
4. Reduce fielding restrictions and review the current powerplay system to even out the playing field between bat and ball. High scoring games are exciting to watch but lately have resulted in more lopsided matches.

Any more suggestions??

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