ICC Cricket World Cup - Needs some fresh thinking

Yesterday I spent almost 4 hours glued to my Apple Macbook pro - watching live streaming of India vs Bangladesh ICC 2011 cricket worldcup match.

India vs Bangladesh scorecard


What an inning by Shewag - makes it look so simple? It was fun to watch him take sweet revenge on Bangladesh.
This guy is a true Nawab.

Shewag's Innings

Match Highlights

Evidently the next day the media was full of awe about his innings and the Indian victory.

The whole game made me think about the disparity between the teams. There is a huge difference between the top teams and the bottom ones. It takes a miracle for a team like Bangladesh or Kenya to beat India or Australia. Most world cup games are boring due to this chronic problem. I remember my first world cup - 1983 - when India won. Followed live commentary of the final match. But every world cup had the same chronic problem and we have done little to address it.

At the same time - good oldies like
Shane warne, Adam Gilchrist, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid - who have lot of cricket left, have to sit out because they have fallen out of favor with their home countries.

ICC should allow the bottom nations (Ireland, Netherlands, USA, Canada, Bangladesh) to use services of this oldies and allow at least 4-5 foreign players to be part of their teams. This will help promote cricket in this countries and also make the world cup more lively.

Think about the possibility of Shane Warne playing for Kenya and taking the wicket of Ricky Ponting and causing an upset.
Think about the scenario of Ganguly playing for Bangladesh and beating the hell out of the current Indian team.
Think about Adam Gilchrist playing for Canada and beating the hell out of Sri Lanka.

Not only it will promote the game in other countries but it will make the world cup more fun to watch.
Currently the most premier tournament is actually meant for the likes of India, Australia, South Africa, England, Srilanka and Pakistan to certain extent. Rest of the teams which is more than 50% cannot even dream of winning the cup. It needs to change otherwise the popularity of cricket will go down and it will be a sport played by 3-4 nations and mostly in the sub continent.

The ICC honchos needs to think like an iconoclast and promote policy to make each team competitive. Give them fair shot at the trophy. Give a platform for the older and younger players from the top nations - who find it hard to get a place in their national team - but have lot of cricket left in them to tip the balance and make it an interesting world class competition.

ALLOW WARNE, GANGULY, GILCHRIST, DRAVID,KUMBLE AND OTHERS PLAY FOR CANADA, KENYA, IRELAND, NETHERLANDS, BANGLADESH.

Make it a level playing ground and world class competition.

Yesterday - it looked like Shewag was playing gully cricket. ICC - WORLD CUP standard needs to drastically improve. Otherwise - ICC and Cricket will cease to exist in another 3-4 decades.

WAKE UP - SAVE THE GAME OF CRICKET.