Subcontinent, ICC pin hope on new-look World Cup

Boria Majumdar

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – The Cricket World Cup hits the  subcontinent on Saturday with an unabashedly biased format  favouring marquee teams like India which seeks to salvage the  country’s reputation as a capable host of major sporting events.
The game’s governing body appears to have learnt their  lesson from the soulless tournament in the Caribbean four years  ago where India’s early exit robbed the event of the attention  of its largest and arguably most passionate support base.

Boria Majumdar
Boria Majumdar

Worse awaited Pakistan, where the game is followed with no  less fervour.
Within 24 hours of their cricket team’s first-round ousting  following a shock defeat by Ireland, coach Bob Woolmer was found  dead in mysterious circumstances.
The security excesses and over-priced tickets conspired to  sap the event of its soul but the International Cricket Council  (ICC) seems determined to right most of the wrongs and the first  step was to tweak the format even if it meant bias.
“We’re trying to ensure we give every team the best  opportunity of remaining in the competition and not losing out  just because of one bad game … so that the best do go  through,” ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat told Reuters earlier  this week.
The 14 teams are now split into two round-robin grounds with  the top four in each progressing to the next stage. As the ICC  says, one bad result will not now lead to a swift departure  home.
India and Bangladesh start the Feb. 19-April 2 tournament in  Dhaka on Saturday with the opening ceremony also in the  Bangladeshi capital on Thursday.

Cricket’s revised world order also augurs well for the  tournament in the subcontinent which has kept the game’s coffers  overflowing.
Australia no longer have that aura of invincibility that  stemmed from their four World Cup titles, including the last  three.
Since Australia’s 2007 victory in the West Indies, others  have not only bridged the gap but some have clearly overtaken  them, rendering the 10th World Cup as one of the most open since  it launched in 1975.
India are determined to gift batting great Sachin Tendulkar  a perfect farewell gift, South Africa have had enough of being  the perennial bridesmaids, Sri Lanka are eyeing an encore of  their 1996 success as co-hosts, while England and Pakistan are  also determined to lay their hands on the holy grail.
For India, the tournament would be as much about flexing  cricketing muscle as salvaging the country’s reputation as an  efficient host of major sports events.
Last year’s Commonwealth Games was intended to showcase  India’s growing financial might but it ended up being a $6  billion public relations disaster salvaged only after a late  scramble by the government.

BITTER MEMORIES
Those bitter memories were revived last month when ICC  stripped Eden Gardens in Kolkata, India’s best known ground, of  its only showpiece match — India v England — because of a  delay in construction.
Sports historian Boria Majumdar believes India can redeem  itself with a successful World Cup.
“It’s maybe the subcontinent’s World Cup but let’s have no  illusion about who is running the show (India),” Majumdar told  Reuters.
“If they pull off a hiccup-free smooth tournament, it will  be a redemption for India after the Commonwealth Games fiasco,”  said Majumdar, who co-authored “Sellotape Legacy: Delhi And The  Commonwealth Games”, a book on the troubled Games.
For once, security will not, according to the ICC at least,  be the vexed issue it was when the region last hosted the event  15 years ago.
“It is a non-issue,” Lorgat told Reuters earlier this week.
In 1996, Australia and New Zealand forfeited preliminary  matches rather than playing in Colombo barely a week after a  massive blast had killed 80 people in the Sri Lankan capital.
Bombs have frequently gone off in Pakistan, where the  visiting Sri Lankan cricketers were attacked in 2009.
Subsequently, the ICC shifted World Cup matches out of  Pakistan, while Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war also ended in  2009 heralding relative peace in the region.
“All indications and reports point towards an eagerly  awaited event,” Lorgat said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Whether it is in Bangladesh, India or Sri Lanka the  interest in the event is evident and we are grateful to the  three hosts for their splendid efforts in preparing well for the  tournament.
“The World Cup promises to be a showpiece full of colour and  passion and will be the pride and joy of each host nation.”
From a fan’s point of view, the World Cup would be a coming  together of contemporary cricket’s most maverick batsmen and  their trademark unorthodox shots — be it Kevin Pietersen’s  ‘Switch Hit’, Tillakaratne Dilshan’s ‘Dilscoop’ or Mahendra  Singh Dhoni’s ‘Helicopter Shot’.
It is also going to be the last World Cup for cricketing  greats Sachin Tendulkar, Muttiah Muralitharan and Ricky Ponting,  while the debut of the Decision Review System in the showpiece  event also offers all 14 teams additional protection against  umpiring howlers. At least, that is ICC’s hope.