22nd Match - England v Sri Lanka

[Pratters]

Yeah I'm not saying it should be a league though, or that the final should be played between the winner of each group. I just think the balance is off as it is. If we had eight teams in each group and every single team qualified for the knockouts, with the group stage merely deciding the standings, you could actually make the exact same argument you have in that post, and I'm sure we'd all agree that'd be silly.

I'm not questioning the format of having a league-ish group stage followed by a knockout with the successful sides from each group.. I just don't think coming fourth out of six sides qualifies as successful. Having three from each group qualify with the quarters being played by 2 v 3 and the semis being played by 1 v quarter final winners would feel much better to me.

AWTA. z

 

[Fuller Pilch]

I think the complete abjectness of England is really a good example of why eight teams qualifying for the next round is just too much. If England snuck home against Bangladesh, qualified for the quarters and then, by a massive fluke, won the following three games.. do we really think it's a deserving way to win a World Cup? England should be eliminated already. The fact that their remaining games aren't dead rubbers is actually a bad thing as much as it's a good thing.

Yeah but that's sport. France almost did the same in the 2011 Rugby World Cup - got thrashed by New Zealand and then lost to Tonga!!! in pool play, scraped a win over England in the quarters, scraped past Wales in the semis after the Welsh captain was sent off early in the game and then almost beat the All Blacks in the final (lost by one point).

Whether we like it or not England can still win this thing. Perhaps Anderson and Broad will remember how to bowl when they see Indian batsmen in the quarters.

 

[Jono]

That's not really "sport" though. England are out in a lot of other formats. And people have whined about this format before England did this so all this does is justify what people have been saying about having quarter finals. Makes the groups pointless. Go straight to the semis

 

[Adders]

If England were a dog, some kind hearted soul would have shot us by now and put us out of this misery........any format that forces them onto further humiliation (even one more game) has got to be ****ed up.

 

[Burgey]

I don't think too many people will discredit England if they do win (I certainly wouldn't), but the point here is that they shouldn't even be allowed to be in a position to win from here. It's the leinency of the format which I feel most people are against. It also reflects badly on the quality of cricket played, the world cup winners should have won most if not all of their games in the world cup, that's how the format should be set up, these backdoor entry wins are rather lame, even if they make for a "great story".

England were in the same position last time around IIRC, at least in 2011 they lost to smaller teams and competed with the bigger wins, still not a fan of this quarter finals garbage, but at least you could somewhat justify an England win had they won in 2011. This time around it would annoy most people if they did indeed pull of a miracle, England haven't merely lost, they've been owned, well and truly.

There's no shortage of sense to this, though I think we all accept the format is structured this way so a top eight side can slip up against a minnow side yet get through, like SA did against India.

Not saying it's right, but I think that's how it's been structured.