Yorked!!! – By Chetan Narula.
So, who actually won (from) the Champions Trophy?
The Champions trophy or the mini World Cup (who ever coined this term was right, given its existing format) is finally over. And the beneficiaries are not many. Actually it’s the number of casualties that bothers me. And cricket, my dear game, was the biggest loser.
For sheer destruction of a game that it looks after, the ICC wins the Oscar hands down from among the rest of the in-charge organizations. If ever the Champions trophy was to be the second jewel among cricket events after the world cup, that logic has gone straight out of the window. For one the scheduling of the tournament was horrific, given that the home team played its first two matches at a gap of eleven days and Sri Lanka played all its matches before even the last two games of its group were up.
And that brings us to the groups. The first two editions of the Champions trophy were actually examples of what the ICC should do,i.e follow a successful knockout format. But the fact that they keep changing it, again re-iterates my point that they should be officially recognized as the worst organization ever.
This actually brings us to the other organization involved, the BCCI. They exactly didn’t perform miracles, but seldom can you do anything about anything when the big bosses are twisting your arm. We are talking about the ticket prices, over which we had the Speed v/s Modi wars. When you yourself drive away the spectators from the ground by pricing the tickets sky high, how can we take the game forward among the masses? Plus this being an ICC tournament, the BCCI will also get only a piece of the huge TV rights owned by the world body.
The one place where the BCCI could have avoided any malice was the pitches. For long the Indian pitches have been talked about, being too spinner friendly, favoring only one side. They could have done well to make good competitive tracks, helpful to all, batsmen, spinners, fast bowlers, et all. But no, it takes two to tango.
The complete sufferer in this melee, were the spectators. You could not go to watch inconsequential matches at the grounds for that would burn a hole in your pocket, and thus the attendance was low. So much so that only the home team matches had full houses. Even the final could not muster a crowd worthy of the second biggest tournament in cricket. Add to that, the dubious nature of the wickets. True the grounds men did not have enough time to prepare the wickets fully. But doesn’t that challenge the schedule and the timing of the tournament again?
After every major tournament, we have the teams in transition. Players who have failed are discarded and new ones tried out. The ones who were successful are given fresh challenges. In these terms too, the tournament failed to excite anybody. Only odd individual performances by Chris Gayle, Farveez Maharoof and Jerome Taylor ignited your imagination. So much so that even the Aussies lacked their natural swagger.
The hosts could have triggered at least the home crowds to frenzy but their early exit dealt away any of those theories. England suffered another ODI debacle and their Ashes challenge is now under question. Sri Lanka lost out due to some poor scheduling even though they played the second highest number of matches after the West Indies, who by the way are now a team revived, proving that their wins back home and in Kuala Lampur were no flukes. South Africa and New Zealand made it to the semi finals but would they term this as a success? I doubt. The biggest losers were the Pakistanis. Their cricket is currently in stormy seas and thus the banning of their premier fast bowlers comes as only yet another chapter to this sorry saga. To them, though, it means that their world cup hopes are severely dented. Lastly it is not even worth mentioning Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
Before I end, lets talk abut the Aussies. The kangaroos have finally got the monkey of Champions trophy off their back and look fully prepared for an all out Ashes assault. So all in all, there was actually only one winner in this edition of the mini world cup. Australia. Not surprising, as they usually win everything cricket has to offer.
Friday, November 10, 2006
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