A Historic Day

A strange joy in defeat is what I experienced yesterday. Media has tendency to call every performance great and ever victory a historic one but 17 March 2007 was truly a historic day for game of cricket. Ireland knocking Pakistan out of the world cup is nothing less than a fairy tale and Bangladesh’s defeat of India has opened up the group B. This day reminded me of Reliance Cup (World cup 1987) when both Pakistan and India lost their semifinals on successive days despite being the hot favorites with some justification to that tag.

This is not just Ireland’s or Bangladesh’s victory but it’s an important step towards that dream of making cricket a truly global step. Likes of Ricky Ponting may still not be convinced but that’s how teams have always come to the fore. After the Super series test of 2005 I wrote that every team took time to progress. India didn’t win a test for 20 years (and even today don’t win too many) but they are among top teams as well as a past world cup winners. Sri Lanka is an example and so would have been Zimbabwe by now if only things were normal back home. I suggested may be Bangladesh should play 4 day tests instead of 5 day ones. In older days teams like India used to play many 3 days tests which certainly helped them draw few games, a luxury Bangladesh or Zimbabwe didn’t have. If a super test could be played for 6 days why not have 4 day tests for newer nations. I said my dream was to see 100 test playing teams some day.

Those who simply laugh on such suggestions, those who don’t dare to dream, and those who are not willing to make an attempt and use their time only to criticize ICC and their development efforts hopefully will now have a rethink. Sri Lanka beat India in 1979 and didn’t do much again until 1996 edition of World cup. Bangladesh beat Pakistan in 1999 and lost all their games in 2003 including one against Canada. But yesterday proved they are up and coming. They may still not win another match in this World cup (though I can’t see them not beating Bermuda) but they are here to stay and they deserve it.

Kudos to ICC for finally getting their world cup format right. 1996 edition was so planned that all group matches meant nothing as 8 out of 12 teams qualified to knock out stage. Who were missed out teams? Remember UAE? In 1999 it was lot better with only 6 teams going to next round (super sixes) but 2003 was close to nonsense again. With 7 teams in a group there were too many mis-matches. This time minnows don’t need to do more than having one good day in the office to hang the fortune of the fancied teams in balance. Not only they won’t have to get too many hammerings (unless you are Ireland and might qualify for super 8s and then face the might of one big team after another) but also their matches become more important than ever before. Yesterday just confirmed that.

Experts often say 1992 edition format was best when all 9 teams played against each other. With 16 teams neither you can have that nor did you want it. Still there was every possibility of top 8 teams in the world playing against each other and fight for a semifinal berth. At the opening ceremony last Sunday everyone claimed this is going to be best ever world cup. Not sure if in terms of organization it will be any close to that but let’s hope purely on the basis of play on the field and excitement it will be. Signs are there already that it’s going to be.