Bad, Boring and a flop show…

Yes. I’m talking about 2007 cricket world cup. Too many negatives than positives. First of all is the crowd turnover in the grounds. To my knowledge the maximum crowd turnover was on the opening match between West Indies and Pakistan with the total crowd of 17000+. The average for this world cup is 5000 odd. Comparing this with the UEFA champion’s league, these numbers are way less.

The tournament format was equally awful. Too many games for the liking, even for cricket fanatics. Some might argue that including minnows is good for the game, but the talent gap between the established ones and the minnows were so huge that the most of the games were just a formality. Records after records were created against them (from highest runs in world cup to consecutive sixes, Century after century partnership to win with max difference).The likes of Bangladesh and Ireland shocked the world with wins against and India and Pakistan respectively but they were far less consistent to make Super 8 a spectacular one.

The death of Bob Woolmer is still a mystery. No inroads into his investigation after nearly a month. Mafia, betting are all rumored for his death. If that’s going to be the reason then definitely it has come at a wrong time. Without Indian subcontinent, there is not much revenue for cricket. With this comes the mafia and betting which are definitely bad for cricket. We are almost caught in a Catch 22 situation.

The sheer dominance of Australia in the world of cricket: Most of the critics almost wrote them off after their poor show against England and New Zealand. But they proved everyone wrong. Their professionalism towards cricket is to be learnt by other cricketing nations. No one really challenged them. Even the first ranked team before the world cup, South Africa just managed 140 odd runs. Not a single match of Australia was close enough. Their dominance makes it a boring and one sided encounter. Haha… What about the Srilankan ploy of resting Murali and Vaas for the Super 8 match against Australia? They were the ones who went for the most runs against them in the finals.