World Cup Super League

What is the purpose of rankings if ICC is introducing the World Cup Super League? According to the league, the top seven teams including the host; India, will qualify for the world cup 2023, and the rest will play as qualifiers. After the introduction of World Cup Super League there are only world cups and leagues left to be played till 2023. ICC claims they are doing this to increase interest in ODIs and test cricket.

Our personal opinion, however, suggests that ICC is over-thinking and simply making the game more complicated. ICC test championship was a good idea because there are no test leagues or world cups. However, for one day cricket, there is the world cup and there is/was the champions’ trophy, hence, resulting in no need to introduce another league/tournament. Wouldn’t it be better to work on standard of cricket rather than introducing more leagues or tournaments to attract crowds to ODIs? ICC can work on making cricket more interesting to attract fans. This can be achieved by improving the balance between the ball and the bat. As previously mentioned, using one ball in ODIs rather than two balls will give the bowlers a chance to show their reverse swing skills.

Another improvement could be setting the limit on the size of the boundaries so that not every mishit goes for a six. Moreover, bats should not be really thick, as this gives an unfair advantage to the batsman. Every other unfair advantage that is given to the batsman or bowler should be changed. In my opinion, there shouldn’t be a limit on the number of bouncers in an over. Pitches should be up to the international standards and each country should play the same number of home and away games within the given time period. Furthermore, in order to motivate players and attract larger crowds, more points should be allotted on an away series win.

ICC has taken a lot of good decisions over the years to improve cricket and those decisions have resulted in the betterment of international cricket. However, there is still room for improvement and looking at the history of cricket, it is spreading all around the world and has never been this famous before, but the question remains: Should we compromise on the standard of cricket merely to make the game more famous?