MUMBAI: The world knows that India is the economic engine that runs the “gentlemen’s game” but you can’t be serious.
After the New Zealand team upset the apple cart by beating the “pre-ordained” champions in the semi-finals of the ICC World Cup 2019 Wednesday, Team India captain Virat Kohli was asked (by an Indian journalist it can be presumed) whether he would like to see the tournament follow the model of the Indian Premier League – where teams that finish at the top of the table after the end of the group stage get another chance to reach the final if they lose their first playoff match – to which he replied in all seriousness: “Who knows in the future. Maybe. If topping the table means anything. I think these things can come into consideration, looking at the magnitude of this tournament. That is a really valid point. You never know when that is going to be implemented.”
“You finish No 1 in the table and then a spell of bad cricket and you are out of the tournament completely. But you have to accept it.”
To give the champion batsman the credit he deserves though, Kohli qualified his comments by adding: “But I think that’s the challenge and different kind of fun of these games as well that you have to be precise. It doesn’t matter what you have done before that.
“It’s a different challenge for all the teams to turn up on that day and be absolutely at the top of their game and whoever does that they get the result, as you saw today (Wednesday).”
So could we have IPL rules being applied for the 2023 World Cup? It might well happen if the powers that be in the BCCI cotton on to the idea as a way to maximise India’s chances of making it to the finals in future World Cups (why not other ICC events as well while they are at it?). This is cricket after all. The financial imperative often overrides all else.
