David Leggat: Cup cutback in 2019 dopey idea

The Cricket World Cup trophy. Photo / Richard Robinson

All hail Afghanistan. Three words you would not expect to leap to mind in a sporting context, but there you are.

Call it the beauty of the 14-team World Cup.

Had the four associate nations turned up at the cup and performed like duds the International Cricket Council might well have sat back, rubbed their tummies and said, "there you are, 10 teams in 2019 is the right way to go".

Except they haven't, and it's not.

Afghanistan's sheer delight at beating Scotland in Dunedin on Thursday should give the ICC pause for thought over their decision to trim the next cup back. Okay, the Scots stuffed things up at University Oval, but that's the game.

The Irish are within touching distance of the last eight; the United Arab Emirates have given a decent account of themselves.

How come cricket seems to be the one sport shrinking its world base?

That's not to say the others are bang on. Unwieldy doesn't do justice to the 32-nation football World Cup.

In 2019, the cup is to be contested by 10 teams, the lowest number since the 1992 event in which nine countries participated in a full round robin. It's evidently about raising the quality and nothing about helping the lesser lights.

Ireland have beaten the West Indies; Afghanistan came within a couple of whiskers of toppling Sri Lanka.

The unexpected results are coming. They're just around the bend.

Competitions need upsets, results that make you go "didn't see that coming".

Otherwise why bother having them? If it's to become a Big Eight jolly, with a couple of associate wheezes thrown in, count me out.

That decision is not set in stone.

Remember, this is the organisation that had the daft idea the World Cup final would be shared in the highly unlikely event of a tie.

Then sense prevailed. Someone presumably gave the ICC an upper cut or two, told them to stop being dopey, and so there'll be a super-over if required. So these things can be adjusted.

There's a view that a full round robin is the fairest system - that is, everyone plays everyone, and no claims of a better/easier draw for some than others.

But still, the tournament is proposed to run for 47 days involving 48 games.

This cup runs from February 14 to March 29 - 44 days for 49 games. How can this be when you lop off four countries?

This week, on three successive days, there was one game played - England against Scotland in Christchurch on Monday; West Indies against Zimbabwe in Canberra on Tuesday; and Ireland against the UAE in Brisbane on Wednesday.

Why only three games spread over those days? Why not two per day?

The biggest, most frequent complaint about the cup is that it needs compressing.

And why must the big clashes be saved for the weekends? Seven-day breaks? Time to smarten up.

Two associate nations get places. That might, hypothetically, be Ireland and Afghanistan.

Yes, that sounds like the ICC's idea of smart global strategic expansion.