| Host nation: India Dates: 5 October-19 November |
| Protection: Check Match Particular commentary of each match on BBC Radio 5 Sports activities Further and BBC Sounds, stay textual content commentary on the BBC Sport web site with in-play clips and highlights, plus options and evaluation |
For the entire speak concerning the demise of Check cricket, it’s the one-day model that has probably the most critical trigger to ponder its personal mortality.
Whereas Checks endure because the oldest, wisest and purest kind and T20 is the disruptor, demanding eyeballs and spreading the sport to elements of the world, one-day cricket is more and more solid because the missed center youngster.
Which makes the World Cup in India, beginning on Thursday lower than every week after the home season in England ended, not solely the game’s marquee occasion, but additionally a possibility for one-day cricket to state a case for persevering with to exist on the highest stage.
The build-up has been removed from splendid.
A schedule was not launched till June and has been tinkered with since. Tickets have been on sale for barely a month, whereas studies steered the Pakistan workforce didn’t have visas to enter India as late as final week.
Some journalists and followers both from or with hyperlinks to Pakistan haven’t any clear approach into the nation. These are issues that showpiece competitions in different sports activities wouldn’t permit to fester.
As regular, it’s interminably lengthy, with 45 days between the opening match and the ultimate on 19 November – just about sufficient time to stage a soccer World Cup instantly adopted by a summer time Olympics. There’s a level within the event the place England play solely as soon as in a 10-day interval.
The format – 10 groups enjoying one another as soon as in an enlarged group stage that reduces to 4 semi-finalists – lacks the jeopardy that makes the perfect occasions so partaking.
A workforce can conceivably lose their first three matches and nonetheless raise the trophy. New Zealand didn’t win 4 video games final time and would have been champions had Martin Guptill been a few yards faster between the wickets.
Maybe cricket’s greatest drawback – and a warfare that has already been misplaced – is the battle for context.
Cricket veers from having far an excessive amount of – whoever wins in India would be the third males’s world champions within the house of a yr after a T20 World Cup final autumn and the World Check Championship remaining in June – or not practically sufficient.
Keep in mind these ridiculous one-dayers England performed in Australia after the T20 World Cup? They begin a white-ball sequence within the West Indies two weeks after this World Cup ends. Insanity.
Checklist A cricket – principally something accomplished in a day however longer than 20 overs – has been sidelined the world over, a lot in the identical approach the One-Day Cup in England performs second fiddle to The Hundred.
9 of the ten groups on the World Cup have performed fewer ODIs within the 4 years to this event than they did in the identical interval as much as the final occasion in 2019, albeit partly due to the pandemic. The tenth, the Netherlands, performed solely two within the 4 years to 2019, highlighting their outstanding achievement of qualifying this time round.
Maybe one approach to breathe life into the one-day format can be to take away the predictable sample of every recreation, making 50-over cricket much less like an extended model of T20.
No fielding restrictions, no restrict on the variety of overs per bowler. If a captain desires 9 fielders on the boundary and to bowl a spinner 25 overs on the reel from one finish, so be it. The totally different approaches would weave their very own tapestry. The perfect tacticians would win via.
Nonetheless, with such a change unlikely, this World Cup must ship for its personal survival. Males’s World Cups haven’t all the time had a historical past of manufacturing the products, the 2003 and 2007 tournaments specific low factors.
The final two editions, although, have been wonderful. Eight years in the past, the event in Australia and New Zealand can be remembered for England being woeful, the Blacks Caps revolutionary and Eire inspirational.
In 2019, England stored us on tenterhooks by making an attempt the whole lot of their energy to derail the mission to raise the trophy, earlier than finally pulling off one of many biggest moments in British sporting historical past.
India will not be the birthplace of cricket, however holding a World Cup there may be returning the game to its non secular dwelling, like a having the soccer model in Brazil or rugby union in New Zealand.
The problem for all concerned would be the sapping situations, the tail-end of the monsoon season and the huge distances to be travelled. The eventual winners may not be the perfect cricket workforce, however slightly the survivors of such a gruelling event.
For that purpose, in addition to being an excellent outfit, the hosts begin as favourites.
It appears outstanding that Virat Kohli and co preserve lacking out on the huge dance, with India’s final world title in any format coming on this competitors on dwelling soil in 2011. If 50-over cricket is in want of a shot within the arm, then India profitable the World Cup could be the perfect drugs.
Their greatest menace might come from defending champions England, who’re largely counting on the category of 2019 so as to add yet another trophy to a glittering assortment amassed by a golden technology.
For these of us who grew up weary of England being little greater than canon fodder in World Cups it’s astounding that they’ve now reached at the very least the final 4 in every of the previous 5 world tournaments. There are issues over holding an ageing squad match, however something lower than a semi-final can be a disappointment.
A Pakistan win can be scrumptious for all kinds of causes, New Zealand are all the time there or thereabouts and Australia can by no means be discounted. South Africa appear to be peaking on the proper time.
The Huge Six might give the looks of a two-tier World Cup, however the situations will give the three different Asian groups within the draw – Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka – the possibility to shock.
Sri Lanka, beneath former England coach Chris Silverwood, must be watched intently after reaching the ultimate of the Asia Cup final month.
As for the Netherlands, they’ll carry the color – fairly actually – of their distinctive orange. Theirs is an excellent story, a nation the place cricket barely registers qualifying for a primary 50-over World Cup since 2011. They did so at a event in Zimbabwe regardless of lots of their prime gamers being unavailable in county cricket for comprehensible monetary causes.
The Dutch made their mark on the T20 World Cup final yr, a memorable victory over South Africa costing the Proteas a spot within the semi-finals. There can be a scalp this time round, with the opposite 9 groups all on their guard.
On the flip facet of the romance of the Netherlands is the tragedy of West Indies, who’re absent from a 50-over World Cup for the primary time. It’s a unhappy indictment of the state of cricket within the Caribbean that the two-time winners won’t be in India. They are going to be missed.
Even when particular person World Cups have resulted in duff occasions, there have nonetheless been magical moments produced.
Imran Khan’s cornered tigers, Arjuna Ranatunga main Sri Lanka to an unlikely triumph, Allan Donald dropping his bat.
South Africa misreading the Duckworth-Lewis sheet, Adam Gilchrist’s squash ball, Kevin O’Brien beating England and the Lord’s tremendous over.
Sure, the Cricket World Cup is way from good, but it surely ought to nonetheless be a cracker.
By the barest of margins.