It was a relief to note the ICC has agreed to return to the best format for the 2011 World Cup and finally banish those dreadful Super Six and Super Eight stages.

Whoever came up with the Super Sixes idea for the 1999 World Cup, I hope, was sacked in the aftermath of the tournament but sadly even if they were, their legacy lived on as the ICC elected to retain this type of format at the 2003 and 2007 editions.

The fact that the last three World Cups have been some of the most boring tournament’s in the relatively brief history of the event, dating back to 1975, is no coincidence that the format was flawed and the tournaments went on way too long.

We still have not heard the time span for the 2011 World Cup to be held in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but one would hope it would be no longer than five weeks, preferably more like a month. The previous two have been close on seven weeks, which makes it difficult to build and then maintain enthusiasm for what is supposed to be cricket’s premier tournament.

The one obvious disappointment is that Pakistan is not going to be involved as a host nation any more. Pakistan is a great country with passionate cricket-loving people and I am sad, personally, as I did not get to attend the World Cup there in 1987 or 1996 and I hoped this would be my chance. But good luck to the other venues all the same. 

Back to format; the reason why the 1992 event passed so successfully was mainly due to the fact that the structure was perfect. Not too many teams who have no chance of winning and with almost all games being competitive and seeing every team play each other once before qualifying for the later stages.

I am satisfied with the 14 teams in the 2011 version as I am a supporter of exposing second-tier nations at these major events but the six associate nations at the 2007 event making 16 in the competition was not right and saw too many one-sided games. This is not good television for the stakeholders or viewers, sponsors don’t want to be investing in tournament that promotes soft cricket and ultimately it does not make for a good advert for cricket to the wider world. How many 10-0’s do you get now at FIFA World Cups? Not many, if at all nowadays.   

We should all want cricket’s power base to widen and expand. There are over 200 FIFA-ranked football teams and many have a chance of making the World Cup. This is not the case in cricket but the ICC’s effort to try and improve this factor is one of their more redeeming achievements.

The fact India and Pakistan crashed out at the first qualifying stage in 2007 almost killed that tournament. At least at the 2011 edition, the powerful teams have a second and third chance to rectify poor performance. And if a minnow still progresses this way, fair enough, they deserve all the credit in the world. But I don’t think you have to be an expert to hazard a guess that the 2011 tournament won’t see any Kenya’s, Zimbabwe’s or Ireland’s in the latter stages like we saw in 1999, 2003 and 2007. This is a return to proper cricket again.

As an aside, though, the one aspect that might just make for an interesting impact on the points table will be if teams refuse to visit a certain venue like happened with Australia and West Indies with Sri Lanka in 1996 and England to Zimbabwe in 2003. Nobody can be too sure now about how the modern day security situation will intervene. It would be a great shame if this were to be the case as the ICC has got this World Cup right, at last.

Richard Sydenham is Managing Editor of Bigstarcricket.com

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