One-day internationals are cricket’s middle child, neither one thing or the other, and more difficult to love than the other kids. Not that they are unloved.
Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE in London
SPORT isn’t fair. It never has been and, if we want it to remain what it is, never can be. Unfairness is inherent in someone winning and the other someone losing.
If cricket, for instance, was fair no-one would be dismissed. Nor would they score a run.
No bowler would take a wicket. Nor fail to take a wicket with every delivery.
No catches would be taken, none would be dropped, and the same would go for stumpings and runouts.
Umpires would get it right — and wrong — every time. Not that we would need them considering no batter would ever score a run, or be dismissed, or not be dismissed.
Scorers, too, would be out of a job. As for trying to write about the game, you would need to be a French philosopher, the kind who deal in language as dense as pea soup that never seems to say anything the rest of are able to latch onto, to make any sense of it. Or not.
Happily cricket will always be unfair and we don’t have to think about all that.
But all cricket is not created equal, and the men’s World Cup is a case in point.
For one thing, where do they get off calling it a World Cup considering it features only 10 teams?
For another, fully half of those sides are from Asia — up a third from 1992, when South Africa first went to the tournament. A name-change should be considered: the Asia and AN Others Cup. Thing is, the 1992 World Cup featured one fewer team than now.
So let’s not complain about where cricket’s future clearly lies as well as simultaneously worry about so few sides playing in its showpiece one-day event. The solution is obvious. Got anymore of those Asian teams? Send ’em over, please.
Even so, you can understand what the suits are trying to do by opting for a single league round with everyone playing everyone and straight into the semis.
There’s none of the clumsy engineering of a Super Six or Super Eight round, and none of the interminable scheduling and foggy formatting that has robbed Super Rugby of all relevance. Maybe anything called Super should tell us it’s anything but.
Disregard the reservations about the number of competitors and the political and financial implications of where they come from, and the design of this year’s tournament has a hint of democracy about it.
More teams would likely mean the division of the sides into groups, which even taking into account seeding would mean some would have easier rides than others. Also a single round guarantees mega matches like India against Pakistan and England versus Australia.
But 48 matches — the last of them on Sunday — spread over six-and-a-bit weeks is a lot of cricket to pay attention to and a long time to have to pay that attention properly.
Even more so when you’re asking people to absorb that amount of the kind of cricket that isn’t about bowling sides out, as in tests, or blasting as many runs as possible secure in the probability that your side isn’t going to be bowled out, as in T20s.
One-day internationals are cricket’s middle child, neither one thing or the other, and more difficult to love than the other kids. Not that they are unloved.
Tickets for Sunday’s final that cost the equivalent of R4 500 reportedly have been offered for resale for close to R281 000.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) put out a release on Friday saying the tournament had garnered “an unprecedented 2.6-billion video views” and that the “social channels have added 12-million new followers in the space of six weeks and attracted 386-million engagements with fans”.
The website had “been visited by 65-million unique users worldwide and has had more than 250-million page views”.
How to decide the best ODI side? That’s hard to answer. But the suits are getting something right. Fair do.
* Published before Sunday’s final.
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