Improving the Cricket World Cup schedule

The cricket World Cup, which ended on Saturday with a resounding victory by Australia over Sri Lanka, has been rife with problems: low attendance caused by exorbitant ticket prices, the farcical end to the final as the umpires forced the players to continue in near-darkness, the horrifying decision to continue play without interruption following the murder of Bob Woolmer. In all these cases, the situation could have been handled better: ticket prices should have been lowered, the umpires should have known the rules, the ICC should have suspended play out of respect for Woolmer and to give players a chance to grieve.

But the biggest problem with the World Cup was entirely predictable. It went on for too long, with far too many meaningless game. Here's a rundown of the schedule: 48 matches over a month and a half, followed by two semi-finals and a final. 46 matches! That's only 15 fewer than the FIFA World Cup last year, which had twice as many teams participating. There was a month of games that involved almost no excitement or elimination; the structure of the Super Eights stage allowed teams like England, which was truly awful throughout the tournament, to maintain hope of advancing until the very end.

The length of the tournament was bad enough. It was made worse by the lack of balance between the Super Eights stage and the real show: the semifinals and finals. After spending a month playing 24 games to determine the top 4 teams in the tournament, even when it was clear from early on that Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and South Africa were the class of the tournament. Instead of quickly eliminating the obvious chaff, we had to sit through an eight-team round robin whose result was known weeks ago.

And after all that work, viewers were left with just three games that really mattered, three games between the top four teams in the competition. On a given day, any top team can beat any other team. The amount of luck involved in the final was only increased by the rain-shortened nature of the final between Australia and Sri Lanka. If you decrease the length of the game, you increase the possibility of crazy stuff happening (like Australia losing, even if they were clearly the best team).

So after taking a month to make absolutely sure that the top four teams made it to the semifinals, the ICC decided to make the semi-finals and the finals a crapshoot. A relative crapshoot, but a crapshoot nonetheless.

The tournament would have been far more engaging if the semi-finals and final were extended to best-of-three (or even best-of-five) series. Doing so would increase the likelihood of the best team winning and, more importantly, produce more games between the top teams in the competition. I'd much rather watch three games of Australia-Sri Lanka then two extra match-ups between mediocre sides.

So there you have it, ICC. Next time around, just get on with already. Shorten the preliminary stages and lengthen the elimination phase. You'll end up with better cricket and less boredom.