Really tragic that 4 teams arent going through here at least.
4 deserve it no matter what happens herein.
That would be socialism. Personally, I think a 12 team World Cup would be best. But to play devil's advocate here is a "cric-conservative" ( we can call it cric-con for short!) argument.
[cric-con]
In a company, you only want the best candidates to get the job. Affirmative action is unfair. Having pre-set quoatas on anything except merit is unfair. When it comes to tax policy, the burden of funding public state apparatus, should not fall with the wealthy - who btw benefit just as much as the poor from state funded institutions and services - but should fall on the middle class. The wealthy earned their wealth due to their skill and labor, therefore the state shouldn't be entitled to it, only to redistrubute it to lazy and incompetent poor people.
Now lets look at the ICC and apply these principles that we have learned.
The World Cup should only feature the best teams. There shouldn't be quota teams or teams picked due to affirmative action. The money generated by an ICC World Cup is in the billions of dollars, and is earned by the 10 teams that play in it. In fact actually its really just India who generates 70% of the revenue. So why should we get more teams who bring neither revenue nor high quality cricket and then they get a cut of that revenue? Doesn't make sense. The fact that those 4 teams are in the world cup qualifying tournament to begin with indicates they don't have the merit to get the money the other 8 (or 3) are earning through their hard work off the field and skills on it.
Maybe these 10 teams should quit being lazy, stop whining, cease the entitled snowflakery and actually start to work hard.
[/cric-con]
Fortunately, Kriterion recognizes the above to be as counter-common sense as Marxism and has a centrist approach.
I'm also now completely convinced we didn't fix the previous Afghanistan games. I guess we get such results because in 1 game you have about 14 mediocre players in the mix and 8 decent ones. Recipe for disaster
I just don't think there is money in fixing the outcome of a ZIM-AFG game, which as we have seen is basically like betting money on a coin toss. If one side were to win 75% of the encounters, there would be a decent enough spread to fix the result and make some money.
This tournament has so much drama, too bad we can't actually see most of it. To be honest a tournament like this should be held in England where most teams have large diasporas of fans.
The Irish and Scots actually had a bid. And while there infrastructure is first rate (along with the UAE), their weather is absolute crap. Every game would be a 25 over shitshoot. UAE would have guaranteed good weather and good infrastructre, but would also have been 20x as expensive to host a non-revenue generating tournament. On top of that, only a few thousand AFG fans would show up to 7 of the games.
I know I criticized ZIM hosting the matches, but now it appears the ICC made the right decision, all things considered.
i dont think its a capitalist or marxist thing, that would be closert to pay. I think 12 is good enough because i think the 12th best team is capable of a close call or a win, as every other world cups have proven to date (kenya 96, us 99, ireland etc)
Cricinfo profile of the 'James Bond' of cricket:
FULL NAME: Angus James Mackay
BORN: 13 June 1967, Harare
KNOWN AS: Gus Mackay
This tournament has so much drama, too bad we can't actually see most of it. To be honest a tournament like this should be held in England where most teams have large diasporas of fans.
The Irish and Scots actually had a bid. And while there infrastructure is first rate (along with the UAE), their weather is absolute crap. Every game would be a 25 over shitshoot. UAE would have guaranteed good weather and good infrastructre, but would also have been 20x as expensive to host a non-revenue generating tournament. On top of that, only a few thousand AFG fans would show up to 7 of the games.
I know I criticized ZIM hosting the matches, but now it appears the ICC made the right decision, all things considered.
its putting all eggs in the basket roll of the dice for us to have hosted this and it appears a masterstroke so far.
Cricinfo profile of the 'James Bond' of cricket:
FULL NAME: Angus James Mackay
BORN: 13 June 1967, Harare
KNOWN AS: Gus Mackay
So what do we need to achieve in the Super 6’s to qualify?
Let’s assume (hate saying that as we are imminently capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against any side) we get through to the next round without a loss, how many games do we then play and how many do we need to win to be assured of qualifying?
I’m confused.
If we beat Scotland we will take 4 points through to the Super Sixes, I would think we then need to win 2 out of our 3 Super Six matches to guarantee qualification. We will be playing Ireland, West Indies, and Netherlands/UAE in the next round. Afghanistan are already in big trouble as they are likely to carry through 0 points to the next stage meaning even if they win all three Super Six matches they still only end up on 6 points which may not be enough.
Neil Johnson, Alistair Campbell, Murray Goodwin, Andy Flower (w), Grant Flower, Dave Houghton, Guy Whittall, Heath Streak (c), Andy Blignaut, Ray Price, Eddo Brandes
I’ve heard Scotland are not too shabby. We desperately need to go thru with a clean sheet as we need that buffer of being able to lose a game if that’s the case. I guess that’s an obvious statement.
I’ve watched Ireland and WI. They’re both looking good.
Netherlands are also sharp, they stumbled against Ireland, but that happens, but they’re also a good team. I see they didn’t give Snater a game which surprised me. Maybe he will play today. I’m going to need medication to get through this. Or vodka!
