Well they have gone and done it again. No reserve day even for the final. Having a precedent of a no results final years ago, one reasonably thought, would lead to some thinking and action over those years. Apparently It did; they asked for weather guarantees. So one must add that it should have resulted in some "reasonable" actions. Instead of asking for weather guarantees and such nonsense ICC would be well served to have an equitable way of producing results rather than these no results.
After the abysmal world cup this was turning into a nice little tournament. The middle of the pack teams really came out to play and gave the top pretenders the run for their money. There was going to be one match in the group stage between two of the top ranked teams. It has now rained out. Worse, teams can lose "free" points against West Indies if any of those games are rained out. With only three games at the group stage the impact of even one rain out is large.
The application of D/L is horrendous. The issues relating to power plays, overs per bowler and setting of the target per ball have be known and discussed ad nauseum. It is a reasonable method only when applied reasonably.
So who is to blame? If it is not ICC solely then it may also be the big four (or some of them) in insisting on such a schedule if they have done so.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Champions' Atrophy
South Africa, the original favorites, are out. Except for Australia of old everyone who has gotten to the top of the rankings has been pretty keen to slide down them at the first available opportunity. Next it will be up to India (and a little bit to Australia) to keep the musical chairs going or to leave the tournament.
The current odder
Australia 5/2
Pakistan 11/4
England 4/1
India 6/1
Sri Lanka 6/1
New Zealand 8/1
Despite the wins (and the only team to have reached the semis at this point) England seem to have not inspired too much confidence among the bettors.
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