New format needed for under-19 tournament

OPINION: The International Cricket Council needs to take a serious look at the format of the world under-19 cup tournament after the latest competition in New Zealand.

The top eight, in fact nine teams including Bangladesh, were evenly matched and deserved to have more "live" matches against each other than the early introduction of the sudden death knockout phase.

After the first-round pool matches teams went straight into the quarterfinals, semis and final while those knocked out were left to play off for the minor placings.

While that gave them games, the extra edge of still being in with a chance of making the top bracket was gone.

A better system may have been to keep the four pools of four, but start playing them immediately the teams had arrived instead of having two full rounds of practice games. If teams want practice games, arrange them beforehand as most did.

Then have pool play with the minnows matched against the big boys, before the probable top two meet to decide first and second in the section.

Instead of then going straight into the quarterfinal knockout stage, have two pools of four and let the sides play each other before finding the top two from each post-section pool to play in the semifinals.

The teenage boys are capable of playing every second day at least and do not need three-day breaks. Also, it would mean more players in the 15-strong squads should get game time.

One unfortunate player in the New Zealand squad, Mattie Thomas, did not take the field in a championship match at all.

Just to show how close some of the teams were, Australia, the eventual champion, lost their pool play match to South Africa but then went on a title-winning run. Bangladesh beat both New Zealand and Australia in warmup matches, before losing narrowly to West Indies and Pakistan in pool play and cruelly missed making the top eight.

A cut-off has to exist and that was tough for them as they could only then finish ninth. It would have been more interesting to use the available days better to get teams facing each other with the title still to be decided instead of toiling for the minor money.

While the idea to have the tournament opening ceremony at the Christchurch Art Gallery was all very well in theory, it rather fell flat in practice when only a few players and officials from each team could attend because of the limited space available.

Surely one of the features of assembling such players in a world event is that they get a chance to mix and mingle at an opening ceremony to celebrate the sport.

- © Fairfax NZ News