Not being a subscriber to Sky, it would be very easy to forget that the 2019 Cricket World Cup is about to start. The radio coverage leading up has been relatively low key as well. There was the usual great coverage of the recent One Day series against Pakistan by the Test Match Special team but what about the warm up matches? Oh yes, there was on the 25th May between England and Australia at Southampton. Once again, the administrators in the ECB pulled an absolute master stroke. Let’s have a warm up game at the same time as the One Day Cup Final at Lords. Somerset, unsurprisingly, won quite comfortably but what might have been for Hampshire had they been able to field both Dawson and Vince? We will never know. Suffice to say that playing the final so close to the start of a World Cup was always going to be an issue regarding unavailability. But I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the 50 over domestic competition will be relegated to the status of a development competition from next year.
But back to the World Cup. That there are only ten nations taking part is just folly. This should be the showcase of the limited over versions of the game yet up and coming nations are not taking part. How do the ICC expect the game to grow if the smaller nations don’t get a sniff? Look at the football World Cup. Currently 32 nations take part and this will increase in 2026 to 48. Even the Rugby World Cup later this year in Japan has 20 nations including Russia and Uruguay; with respect, hardly the strongest nations going. But not the ICC. They can’t seem to find a consistent format for the scheduling of the competition. This time around, it’s a round robin where everyone plays each other once with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals. The 2011 and 2015 iterations shared the same format of 14 teams in two groups of 7. The top four teams from each group qualified for the quarter finals and followed the standard knockout format. Even the 2007 version had 16 nations taking part. If someone can please explain the logic behind this regression, please let me know. Or is it a case that the ICC are looking to drop the 50 over game and instead focus on T20, 100 ball and Test Cricket?
Anyway, back to this year. Every match to be broadcast on Sky Sports. No highlights package for free to air TV? Even in Australia, whereas all the matches will be on subscription TV, all Australia fixtures plus the semi-finals and final will also be shown live on Channel 9. That new TV deal in the UK just can’t come quickly enough. As for picking a winner? I know that England are ranked as favourites but I just don’t know enough of the other nations to make an informed judgement.
S.N. Don