“I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game *featuring you*, while singing your own song in a new commercial, *starring you*, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not *sleep* until that happens. I'll give you fifteen minutes to call me back” uttered by Tom Cruise, who plays a Sports agent in the movie ‘Jerry Maguire’
Way back in 1996 it was when World Cup was played in the sub-continent for the second time that we came to see what advertising was and how it can hold sway over millions. It was in that World Cup that we were introduced to official drinking partner of XXX, official chewing gum of XYZ, and what not
Cut back to 2007, and you would realise that the World Cup in Caribbean was a colossal failure and why? With the exit’s of Pakistan and India, the tournament was shorn of more than half the television audience and the ad’s on TV drastically reduced. So to accommodate that kind of so-called one-off failures, the 2011 World Cup has been scheduled in such a way that top teams are virtually assured of a knock out stage berth (or is it to make sure the home teams progress further?)
In 1983 Zimbabwe upset Australia, in 1992 South Africa surprised the world by reaching the semi-finals, in 1996 Kenya sent shock waves by winning against West Indies, in 1999 Bangladesh upset Pakistan and in 2003 Kenya reached the semi-finals, and as mentioned earlier, in 2007 Bangladesh and Ireland sent India and Pakistan home
Of all the above mentioned bar South Africa who acquitted themselves well, all the other teams failed to take the next step. The core of all these difficulties lies in finance. Ireland lost the services of Eoin Morgan to England because they could not pay him well and he has turned out to be a talisman in the England middle order
Fault lies primarily with the boards and ICC. When the countries made their name by these upsets, ICC turned a blind eye towards the development and it has come back to sting them hard. The reason why the World Cup’s have not been entertaining is because of the long drawn format. It pays to have a league structure like in the last World Cup and then proceed to the knock-out stages rather than playing super sixes or eights
If ICC lost India in the last World Cup, they also realised that Bangladesh is a lucrative market too. With India, being the monolith that it is now in cricket, it won’t be surprising if they are given a bye to the knock out stages in the World Cup
An American gentleman I met recently was of the opinion that people would never shun quality regardless of the length of the game. He said audience bear the entire length of the tournament to see some quality coming their way in the knock out stages and that should be bought upon them as quickly as possible
There are a few things that Cricket can learn from football too. By a quirk of fate, things reached to a stage where the teams ranked no1 and no2, were pretty close to playing each other in the second round itself. Imagine if that happens in cricket! Why just cricket, any other sport- it would be a blockbuster
From football’s experience, we can draw the inference that there is a certain ebullience and freshness that new teams bring along with them. Remember Senegal anyone? Kenya and Zimbabwe should have been equals with the top teams by now but they are languishing at the bottom parts of the table
To be continued .....
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