does the super 8 go to long

[jemo27]

24 days is nearly a month, i feel it to longs

[Richard]

Had things worked as they were planned I certainly don't feel so.

Personally, I feel the preliminary group-stages should have been done at another time - as a qualifying round, rather than the tournament proper. Maybe a year ago. Then start the tournament with the Super Eight phrase. Maybe that'd be an option in future, if people insist there must be mega amounts of top-meets-bottom games.

And, of course, an added bonus there would be that had it done so it's unlikely things would have failed to go according to plan.

[KiWiNiNjA]

I think nearly a month of the TOP 8 sides playing each other is definitely not TOO long. Unfortunately things didnt go all to plan but still....

[irfan]

Yes, it does. But that's not to say I don't like the format. The intention of the ICC was obviously to get the top 8 Test nations playing against each other and playing everyone bar the team they played in the group stages.

There is no other 'complete' way of judging a team's quality other than have it play every other team once before the semi-final stage. No teams can say they had an unlucky draw, got badly affected by pitch & weather conditions or got knocked out due to a freak result.

I also like the carry-over-points system where a team gets 2 points if it defeats the other team in their group that qualified for the super 8. Minimises dead rubbers and lack of intensity shown by team who's already qualified - reinforces the importance of every WC match.

Atm, the WC is semi-league, semi-tournament and if you want it to be a true tournament then you have to alter the format accordingly.

1. Introduce seedings; seedings correspond to ODI rankings given out to all teams. The seeding of teams should be done after the last ODI match before the WC.
2. Keep the Group Stage format as is.
3. Say the teams that qualified for the Next stage are of corresponding seedings (1,2,3,4,6,8,9,11)

Then the matches would 1 vs 11, 2 vs 9, 3 vs 8, 4 vs 6.

Winners progress to Super 4 stage(lame I know) (say 1,2,3,6 win) where it would be a round-robin competition. The two teams then play-off in the final

This way to qualify for the Final you would have to play a maximum of four matches instead of seven matches. One potential pitfall with this format is that half the teams that get out of the group stage will be knocked out with one bad perfomance.

This is done to ensure that freak results (Ireland vs Pakistan) doesn't ensure Ireland an extra 6 games but rather a sudden-death match that proves whether they really have the quality to mix it up with the big boys.

This format may be harsh, if all the big 8 nations qualify then it means that if you lose one crunch match, you're out. But if you can't bank on winning in a pressure do-or-die situation then you shouldn't be entertaining thoughts of winning a WC

Just my two cents

[pup11]

No way the Super 8's is too long for me, i think this format is the best we have had so far in any WC. Its just a pity that India and Pakistan weren't able to make it through to the Super 8's.


Anyways according to me the best 8 teams in this WC are in the Super 8's and thats what really matters in the end.

[LA ICE-E]

well if they really cared about making it shorter...then they could have- just have two games a day like you did it in group stage- then it would be down to 27 days all together...but i guess super 8 games needs undivided attention...

[marc71178]

Originally Posted by Richard

Had things worked as they were planned I certainly don't feel so.

Personally, I feel the preliminary group-stages should have been done at another time - as a qualifying round, rather than the tournament proper. Maybe a year ago. Then start the tournament with the Super Eight phrase. Maybe that'd be an option in future, if people insist there must be mega amounts of top-meets-bottom games.

And, of course, an added bonus there would be that had it done so it's unlikely things would have failed to go according to plan.

A year ago?

Utterly meaningless to do that, since the teams evolve for one thing.

[Richard]

Well the rest of the qualification was such a time ago.

Teams evolve over a tournament. You're never going to stop that from having an effect.

The whole point is that the tournament and the qualifying should be separate. IMO the preliminary group stages were more qualifiers than part of the finals.

[age_master]

Definately not too long for mine.

[LA ICE-E]

then would it have been a good idea to have two super 8 matches a day too?

[Athlai]

Originally Posted by LA ICE-E

then would it have been a good idea to have two super 8 matches a day too?

But how would we watch them all live!
Think of all that unwatched cricket.

[James]

I think the problem is that there isn't the nature of knock-outs so the games don't really give you that edge of your seat feeling.

Why can't we just have Quarters/Semis/Finals like the Football World Cup?

[marc71178]

Originally Posted by Richard

Well the rest of the qualification was such a time ago.

The group stages aren't qualification though, they're part of the tournament.

What you're saying is the equivalent of saying the group stages of the 2010 World Cup should be in 2009.

[LA ICE-E]

Originally Posted by James

I think the problem is that there isn't the nature of knock-outs so the games don't really give you that edge of your seat feeling.

Why can't we just have Quarters/Semis/Finals like the Football World Cup?

because people complain that its not fair and all that crap when a team like india gets out...
well not enough games i guess...because remember fifa world cup has the round of 16 too...so may be they will have knockouts when the formats expands...

[LA ICE-E]

Originally Posted by Athlai

But how would we watch them all live!
Think of all that unwatched cricket.

it was like that in the group stage...just switch between channels...but yeah thats why im guess this is long...so if you complaining about it being long than you're obviously talking about cutting some cricket out anyways...it would cut it down for you but the cricket wouldn't be cut down...