Thursday, June 11, 2009

Pre-Seeding vs Rankings

Lots of people I know, and many in the blogosphere seem pretty confused about the way Groups E and F were made up.

Here's some facts to try to clear things up:

  • Each team was pre-seeded before the tournament began. India was A1, Pakistan was B1, England was B2, etc.
  • The constitution of Groups E and F was also decided beforehand. So Group E would comprise of the teams that were pre-seeded A1, B2, C1, D2. And Group F would comprise of the teams that were pre-seeded A2, B1, C2, D1.
  • If one of the third teams in the group (e.g. Ireland, Netherlands, etc) made it through, then they would assume the pre-seeding of the team that didn't make it through. So, since Bangladesh who were pre-seeded A2 did not go through, Ireland assumed the pre-seeding of A2.
  • This is exactly how the ODI WC 2007 was done.

Now does this pre-seeding stuff make sense? For the ODI WC 2007, yes it did. Because each team ended up playing each other in one group. So it didn't matter if you topped your group.

But in T20 WC 2009 it does not make sense. Since there are two different groups, they should each be comprised of two first place teams, and two second place teams. i.e. they should be defined based on rankings, and not pre-seeding.

The ICC does this so that you can "follow your team." So as a Pakistan supporter, I could buy tickets for B1 matches and be assured that I would follow Pakistan in the Super-8 if they made it through. Now, I did do this for ODI WC 2007, but of course Pakistan crashed out so my B1 tickets meant I got to follow Ireland! Hey, they're all men in green, right???

Hopefully that clarifies things a bit. Or adds to the confusion??? Who knows!

Make your pitch on this post...



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3 Pitched:

  1. Q said...
     

    Its overwhelming as to how many people I have tried explaining this too :-) ..

    Thanx for putting it up!

  2. Krish said...
     

    Yeah, I mean this was the most confusing part of the entire tournament.

    And frustrating too. Consider that South Africa should have been in Group F instead of E right now.

  3. Q said...
     

    Krish, atleast u listened to me and agreed with it when I mentioned it to you :-) ...

    The amount of people who argued is what is overwhelming.. I had to point them to the rulebook and what not..

    Actually if the Super 8s were based on rankings, the 2 Super 8 pools would have looked like:

    Group E: India (A1), Pakistan (B2), Sri Lanka (C1), New Zealand (D2)

    Group F: Ireland (A2), England (B1), West Indies (C2), South Africa (D1)

    Quite a drastic change that. Actually no, only Ireland and India swap positions and E becomes F and F becomes E.

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