Astrologer predict's Lankan victory, but Fletcher scotches claim
By Hafiz Marikar
WORLD CUP CRICKET: According to a local astrologer in Central
Province of Sri Lanka - we are most lucky to witness a repeat version of
the 1st Semi-Final in 1996 Wills World Cup - Predicts a strong star for
Sri Lanka in the 2011 Cricket World Cup. But former England coach Duncan
Fletcher says in an interview that there are no favourites for the 2011
Cricket World Cup. So let us now sit back and watch the clash of the Big
Titans.
The 2011 ICC World Cup Cricket in the 10th competition has changed
over the course of its history. The first four competitions was played
by eight teams, which was divided into two groups of four. The
competition comprised two stages, A) Group stage, B) Knock-out stage.
The four teams in each group played each other in the round-robin, with
the top two teams in each group progressing to the semi-finals. The
winners of the semi-finals played against each other in the final.
In 1992, with the return of South Africa after the ending of the
apartheid boycott, nine teams played each other once in the group phase,
and the top four teams progressed to the semi- finals. The tournament
was further expanded in 1996, with two groups of six teams. The top four
teams from each group progressed to quarter-finals and semi-finals.
In 1999 and 2003 a new format was used. The teams were split into two
pools, with the top three teams in each pool advancing to the Super Six.
The "Super Six" teams played the three other teams that advanced from
the other group.
As they advanced, the teams carried their points forward from
previous matches against other teams advancing alongside them, giving
them an incentive to perform well in the group stages. The top four
teams from the "Super 6" stage progressed to the semi-finals, with
winners playing in the final.
The last format used in the 2007 World Cup, features sixteen teams
allocated into four groups of four. Within each group, the teams play
each other in a round-robin format. Teams earn points for wins and
half-points for ties. The top two teams from each group move forward to
the Super Eight round.
The "Super Eight " teams played the other six teams that progressed
from the different groups. Teams earned points in the same way as the
group stage, but carrying their points forward from previous matches
against the other teams who qualified from the same group to the "Super
Eight" stage. The top four teams from the "Super Eight" round advance to
the semi-finals, and the winners of the semi-finals play in the final.
The current format, approved by ICC to be used in 2011 World Cup,
features fourteen teams allocated. Within each group, the teams will
play in a round-robin format. The top four teams from each group will
proceed to the knock out stage playing quarter-finals. Winners of the
quarter-finals will play semi-finals and the winning semi-finalists will
play in the final.
The ICC Cricket World Cup Trophy is presented to the winners of the
World Cup finals. The current trophy was designed and presented for the
1999 championships, and was the 1st Trophy presented to the tournament
in the history of the event; prior to this, different trophies were
introduced and offered in each World Cup. This trophy was designed and
produced in London by a team of excellent craftsmen from Garrard & Co
over a period of two months.
The current trophy is turned from silver and gold, and features a
golden globe held up by three silver columns. The columns, shaped as
stumps and bails, represent the three fundamental aspects of cricket:
batting, bowling and fielding. While the globe characterizes a cricket
ball. The trophy is designed with platonic dimensions, so that it can be
easily recognized from any angle. It stands 60 cm high and weighs
approximately eleven kilograms. The names of the previous winners are
engraved on the base of the trophy, with space for a total of twenty
inscriptions.
Original trophy with ICC
The original trophy is kept by the ICC, only a replica, which differs
only in the inscriptions, is permanently awarded to the winning team.
The tournament is the World's third largest (with only the World Cup
Football and the Olympics exceeding it), being televised in over two
hundred countries to over 2.2 billion television viewer Television
rights, mainly for the 2011 and 2015 World Cup, were sold for over
US$1.1 billion, and sponsorship rights were sold for a further US$500
million. The 2003 Cricket World Cup matches were attended by 626,845
people, while the 2007 Cricket World Cup sold more than 672,000 tickets
and recorded the highest ticketing revenue for a Cricket World Cup.
Successive World Cup tournaments have generated increasing media
attention as One-Day International cricket has become more established.
The 2003 World Cup in South Africa was the first to sport a mascot,
Dazzler the zebra. An orange raccoon-like creature known as Mello was
the mascot for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The Mascot designed for 2011
is a young elephant called " Stumpy".
The ICC executive committee votes for the hosts of the tournament
after examining the bids made by the nations keen to hold a Cricket
World Cup.
England hosted the first three competitions. The ICC decided that
England should host the first tournament because it was ready to devote
the resources required to organizing the inaugural event. India
volunteered to host the third Cricket World Cup, but most ICC members
believed England to be a more suitable venue because the longer period
of daylight in England in June meant that a match could be completed in
one day.
The 1987 Cricket World Cup was the first hosted outside England, held
in Pakistan and India. Many of the tournaments have been jointly hosted
by nations from the same geographical region, such as South Asia in 1987
and 1996, Australasia in 1992, Southern Africa in 2003 and West Indies
in 2007. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India are the host of the 2011 World
Cup.
Sri Lanka only host team to win
Sri Lanka, who co-hosted the 1996 Cricket World Cup, is the only host
team to win a World Cup tournament, though the final was held in
Pakistan. England is the only other host to have made the final, in
1979. Other countries which have achieved or equalled their best World
Cup results while co-hosting the tournament are New Zealand,
semi-finalists in 1992; Zimbabwe, reaching the Super Six in 2003; and
Kenya, semi-finalists in 2003. In 1987, co-hosts India and Pakistan both
reached the semi-finals, but were eliminated by Australia and England
respectively.
India's Dhoni, has said that "I am not going to buy a life jacket
that doesn't come with a warranty", about the Umpire Decision Review
System (UDRS). The (in) famous quote leaves the uninitiated baffled and
the informed frustrated.
The UDRS has got a lot of flak after the notorious not-out decision
that was given in favour of Ian Bell by Billy Bowden in the India vs.
England World Cup encounter.
A couple of days later, it was again the subject of debate when in
Sri Lanka's match against Kenya, the umpire reversed his decision of
"Out" after the review in similar circumstances. Since, in both these
cases, the final verdict was "Not Out", the lesser informed have
developed an opinion that the rule stipulates that if the point of
impact is more than 2.5 m, it cannot be given out; leading many to argue
that batsmen can avoid ever being LBW if they were to stand a foot
outside the crease to bat.
The Indian Board and some senior players of India including Dhoni and
Sachin have earlier argued that introduction of UDRS jeopardizes the
authority and credibility of the umpires in the middle. What they
probably don't realize is that by disputing Billy Bowden's decision,
they are doing exactly that themselves, i.e., questioning the authority
and judgment of the man in the middle.
The rulebook does not state that the batsman cannot be given out if
the point of impact is more than 2.5 m away from the stumps. All it says
is that in such cases, the on-field umpire, armed with additional
information from the review, will take the final decision based on his
understanding.
With regard to determining whether the ball was likely to have hit
the stumps: If a "not out" decision is being reviewed, in order to
report that the ball is hitting the stumps, the evidence provided by
technology should show that the centre of the ball would have hit the
stumps within an area demarcated by a line drawn below the lower edge of
the bails and down the middle of the outer stumps.
However, in instances where the evidence shows that the ball would
have hit the stumps within the demarcated area as set out above but that
the point of impact is greater than 250 cm from the stumps, the third
umpire shall notify the on-field umpire of:
Final decision with on-field umpire
The distance from the wickets to the point of impact with the
batsman, The approximate distance from point of pitching to point of
impact where the ball is predicted to hit the stumps.
In such a case, the on-field umpire shall have regard to the normal
cricketing principles concerning the level of certainty in making his
decision as to whether to change his decision.
In India's match, the umpire, Billy Bowden, upheld his decision
because he had the "freedom" to do so, although in my opinion he should
have given it out. In Sri Lanka's match, the umpire, armed with the
additional information from the 3rd umpire that the ball had hit the
batsmen more than 2.5m away from the stumps and that it was predicted to
go a foot above the stumps, decided to overturn his decision.
The UDRS is there to avoid the absolute bowlers. It does not
undermine the authority or the judgment of the on-field umpires.
It is only there to assist them. If one were to go through the
rulebook, it clearly states that the UDRS will only overturn the
decision of the on-field umpire when it can prove, as they say in the
legal jargon, 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the decision is incorrect.
Whenever there is doubt, the decision of the on-field umpire stays.
The UDRS is a tool which is there to assist the umpires. The
instances of bad umpiring decisions having a bearing on the matches
result had increased in the recent past making the need to improve the
decision making even more critical.
Agreed that the UDRS has limitations of its own and could perhaps
never be 100% reliable, but when looked at as an aiding device that
still depends on the judgment and understanding of humans to come to a
conclusion, it is a pretty useful tool to have.
|