IPL's NEW FORMAT: EXPLAINED AND ANALYSED

Cricinfo's goof-up has made my previous post completely redundant. Here's the new IPL format:

Group A: Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, Team 4, Team 5
Group B: Team 6, Team 7, Team 8, Team 9, Team 10

Now, here's how it will work. Each team in Group A will play 2 matches each (home and away) against the four other teams in Group A. Similarly each team in Group B will play 2 matches each (home and away) against the four other teams in Group B. That makes it 8 matches for each team and 40 matches in all.

In addition, each team will play 2 matches (home and away) against any 1 team (chosen randomly) from the other Group. And finally, that team will also play 1 match each against the 4 remaining teams in the other Group (2 at home and 2 away). So, for example, if Team 1 plays 2 matches against Team 6 from Group B, then they will play 1 match each against Team 7 (say home), Team 8 (say away), Team 9 (say home) and Team 10 (say away). This means another 6 matches for each team... making it 30 matches in all.

Therefore, totally, there will be 70 matches in the league stage... 14 matches for each of the 10 teams (7 home and 7 away). And despite the teams being divided into 2 groups, there will be just 1 combined league table. Then there will be the playoffs. The format for playoffs is also different and slightly confusing.

Play Off Match 1: Rank 1 team on the table will play against Rank 2 team on the table. The winner of this match becomes the Finalist 1.

Play Off Match 2: Rank 3 team on the table will play against Rank 4 team on the table. The loser of this match will be the No. 4 team for the tournament. And the winner will be guaranteed a Champions League spot. But the winner does not enter the finals straight away. The winner will still need to play another match to qualify for the finals.

Play Off Match 3: The winner of Play Off Match 2 will take on the loser of Play Off Match 1. The winner of this match will enter the finals.

Finals: The winners of Play Off Match 1 and Play Off Match 3 will contest the finals of the Indian Premier League.

The format is unique... nothing like this has ever been seen before in the history of cricket (and maybe, other sports as well). But it is confusing. Keeping the essence of this format the same (i.e. 14 matches per team - 7 home and 7 away), I have a better format in mind. It would be much easier to understand as compared to the one explained above. Here it goes:

Each team should be required to play 2 matches (home and away) with every team in the other group and 1 match each with the remaining teams in their own group. This would mean that Team 1 would play 2 matches against Team 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. In addition, it would also play 1 match each against Team 2 (say home), Team 3 (say home), Team 4 (say away) and Team 5 (say away).

See, I did not even require a new paragraph to explain the entire format. Its much easier to understand than the one decided upon by the IPL Organising Committee. If only I were paid those salaries... sigh!

Moving on, I quite liked the new Play Offs format. It is a little weird to read at first, but it makes a lot of sense. Teams that finish Rank 1 and Rank 2 on the table are the ones that have performed consistently throughout the tournament. So, it is slightly sad if they have one bad day on the day of the semi-finals and do not get a chance to compete for the big prize. In the new format, they will get another chance... if they were to lose their Play Off Match 1, they will get another chance to try and win the Play Off Match 3 and still qualify for the finals.

And fittingly, Teams that finish Rank 3 and 4 will have to win three consecutive matches to win the IPL (instead of two consecutive matches as it stands in our traditional semi-final and final format). I will reiterate that I like this Play Off format... it makes a lot of sense to me! The deserving get an extra chance... and the undeserving have to pass an extra test to show that they deserve!

Reports suggest that this new Play Off Format was suggested by Adam Gilchrist as an extra incentive for teams to finish Top 2 on the table. In our current format, once the teams have qualified for the semis, they take it slightly easy and rest a few important guys. In IPL 3, Mumbai Indians played almost a complete new-look squad in their last IPL league match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. They were so depleted that they had to be captained by Dwayne Bravo... the man who himself was not a regular feature of the playing XI.

All in all, I must admit that 74 matches is certainly better than 94... but still quite a lot. It would have been even better had the tournament been even smaller... but alas, that is not to be! Lets hope that the new format, the new auction that will reshuffle squads, and the new teams keep us interested in this marathon tournament for long enough to reach the finals.

IPL'S NEW FORMAT MAKES EVEN LESSER SENSE

IPL Governing Council has decided on what the new format for the Season 4 in 2011 is going to be like. In the earlier format, each team was to play 18 matches each during the league stage (2 against each of the 9 other teams on home and away basis)... making it 90 matches during the league stage. This was to be followed by the 2 semi-finals, the third-place play-off and the finals... making it 94 matches in all.

Here's the new format (74 matches):

Stage 1: The 10 teams will be divided in 2 groups of 5 each. 5 teams in each group will play 2 matches (home and away) against the other teams from their group. That makes it 20 matches in Group A and 20 matches in Group B.

Stage 2: After that, the top 3 teams from each group (6 teams in all) play home and away matches against each other. That will make it 30 matches in this stage.

Stage 3: And then we will have the 2 semi-finals, the 3rd place play-off and the finals. That makes it 74 in all.

Lets look into this new format in finer detail and compare it with the older format.

In the older format, the top-4 teams would have played 20 matches each and the other 6 would have played 18 matches each. In this format, the top-4 teams still play 20 matches each, the 5th and 6th teams play still 18 matches each and the bottom-4 teams play only 8 matches each.

The need for a new format arose due to the issues like player burn-out and cramped scheduling time. I don't think the newer schedule addressed any of those matters in an ideal manner.

The player burn-out will be reduced only for the teams that finish bottom-4 (i.e. bottom-2 in each group). They will be playing only 8 matches... the rest of the teams still have to play 18-20 matches over a period of those few weeks. What use is that? It hardly helps. In fact, this format makes the player burnout issue even more lop-sided with certain players playing 8 matches and the other playing more than double that number.

A better option would have been to change the Stage 2. Instead of having 3 teams of each group play 2 matches against each other, it should have been 3 top teams from each group play home and away matches against the top 3 teams of the other group. So instead of having A1 play 2 matches each against A2, A3, B1, B2 and B3, they should have been made to play 2 matches each against B1, B2 and B3 only. I say this because A1 has already played 2 matches against A2 and A3 when they met during Stage 1. The points and Net Run Rate of A1's performances against A2 and A3 during their previous meetings can be carried forward to this stage.

This would have reduced the number of matches during Stage 3 from 30 to 18... bringing the total number of matches down to 62 (which is a lot more manageable number than 74 in a 6-week schedule). This also would have brought some parity in the player burnout issue since the top-4 teams will play 16 matches each and the 5th and 6th ranked teams will play 14 matches.

Though the new format is better than the old one (94 matches would have been a drag), it is still not ideal. 74 matches are also way too many in 6 weeks... and even 62 are quite a lot. But the economics of our game is such that these things can't be helped a lot now!

WISH TO SEE THE FEDERER - NADAL RIVALRY AGAIN

Away from the depressing topic of corruption in cricket, I am today turning my attention to the US Open Grand Slam... the last tennis Grand Slam of the year.

Of the four Grand Slams played in tennis every year, US Open is my least favourite... simply because I live in a time zone that is not ideal if you want to follow every match at this big event! The live coverage of US Open begins at 8:30 pm each evening... and goes through the night to end at about 9:00 am the next morning. Since the best matches are played under lights during the second half of the day, they usually begin after 4:00 am in India.

But this has never stopped me from following the draws and the results at this Grand Slam. Being a Rafa fan, I am desperately hoping that he wins this title to complete his career Grand Slam. But if there's one thing that I want to see even more desperately, it is a Nadal v Federer final. These men have played in 7 Grand Slam finals... competing 30 sets with Nadal holding a 5-2 advantage over Federer.

Their Grand Slam finals showdowns are stuff of legends. Who can forget the brilliant 2008 Wimbledon finals that lasted four and three quarters of an hour interrupted by two rain delays! And then who can forget the 2009 Australian Open finals... just a few months later when Nadal consoled a sobbing Federer after defeating him in another 5-set marathon! Stuff of legends, indeed!

That Australian Open was their last meeting in a Grand Slam Final. Since then, they have met only twice... both times in the finals of Madrid Masters - Federer winning in 2009 and Nadal in 2010. The winner of Madrid Masters in both these years went on to sweep the French Open and Wimbledon titles in that year.

Their dominance in tennis Grand Slams can be ascertained by the fact that after the Australian Open 2005 (won by Marat Safin), only 2 Grand Slams out of 22 have been won by men other than these two - Novak Djokovic of Serbia took the Australian Open 2008 title and Juan Martin Del Potro won the US Open 2009. Add the fact that Del Potro defeated Federer in the finals last year, this means that over the last 5 and a half years, there has been just one Grand Slam final (Australian Open 2008) where both Federer and Nadal have been missing... Djokovic defeated Jo Wilfried Tsonga to win his lone Grand Slam title!

With due respect to the emerging young talents in the world of men's tennis like Djokovic, Andy Murray, Del Potro, Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych and many others, there still has been no one to match the greatness of these two champions! Federer obviously has more laurels attached to his name with 16 Grand Slam titles as compared to Nadal's 8, but the Spaniard still enjoys a 14-7 record over the Swiss champion! And there is no doubt in my mind that Federer's tally of 16 would have been smaller had Nadal not been 4 years and 10 months younger to him.

As it stands today, I doubt Federer is going to add many more to his tally of 16... but as far as Nadal is concerned, I am really hopeful. Though I don't think it would be realistically possible for him to reach Federer's 16 titles, I hope he comes as close to it as possible. Nadal's game is physically a lot more exhausting than Federer's and that will give him a career shorter than that of Federer, but he's already shown that he can achieve a lot in these short periods!

NO ICC AWARDS FOR THE SUSPENDED TRIO

In the backdrop of the spot-fixing scandal and the corruption charges, ICC issued a statement on Thursday that Mohammed Aamer and Mohammed Asif have been removed from the list of nominations in the ICC Annual Cricket Awards.

Aamer had been nominated under ICC's Emerging Player of the Year Award and Asif had been nominated under ICC's Test Player of the Year Award.

These two bowlers have been brilliant over the last few months for Pakistan's cricket. So if the allegations against them are true (which they are, to my mind - it is almost impossible to believe that there might have been a coincidence or a frame-up), these two will have to suffer dire consequences, along with the cricket in Pakistan.

If these men were under-performing and yet they had been nominated to ICC's Awards, I wonder how good they would have been had they been playing their best cricket!

However, I do believe that ICC has taken a good step in suspending these two and their captain Salman Butt from cricket. We live in a society that says you are innocent until proven guilty... but when the society has seen the overwhelming evidence against those involved, one has to take a different stand!

For a change, ICC has been pro-active and did not wait for investigations to be completed. There was a big chance that this case would get involved in the web of bureaucracy so prominently existent in cricket's administration. That is why, ICC's decision to suspend the 'tainted trio' holds even more significance.