True to the Vineet’s Cricket Team Rankings, the first 6 teams made it to the second round (in sharp contrast to only 4 out of top 6 teams in ICC Rankings) with 2 teams Pakistan (7th) and India (8th) getting replaced by other teams.

I still expect my rankings to hold true and 4 Teams from 1-5 rankings (Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, England and Sri Lanka) to make the next round. Most like a toss up between England and Sri Lanka, with possibly Sri Lanka going through since Jayasuriya is passing through a very special period. Most likely even the lineup order would remain the same as my rankings.

This all points to a question, whether the ICC Ranking system holds true? They didn’t even acknowledge that a team called Ireland could be ranked, whereas, I had Ireland at No. 6 in my ranking!! ICC gives high ranking to India and Pakistan (in the top 6) whereas my rating was at 7 and 8 (at the edge of qualification).

My ranking system is based on the ranking of the players who represent the country in the previous year, and the performance of each one of them counts. Which means a failed try would also be counted as much as a succesful debut, and each team member would need to contribute before the team can be ranked high.I would surely like your comments about what you think of all this? Do post your comments right here.

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Greg Chappel tried rolling substitutions to some extent but got bogged down by big names. Substitutions have come to stay and teams that manage to susbtitute and preserve key people would go a longer way to win a higher percentage of matches than teams who play all key players in every match..

This was not what Greg did. Greg tried to keep changing players for undecided spots, which is a very different strategy than rolling all people to keep them healthy as well as leave a strong bench strenth.

In fact he rolled those non key people even after they performed and key people were not disturbed even when they didn’t perform at all. In fact, only the form should be the criteria to get into the team. And inf act some cricketers didn’t get enough chances despite some success, like Gambhir, Mongia, Sreesanth, Balaji, and Irfan Pathan (who should’ve played even on the basis of just his batting).

A possible strategy could be:

1. Play 5 batsmen and 5 bowlers. This could be 4-4-2-1 (batsman-bolwer-allrounder-keeper)
2. Send the best men forward (have you heard in hockey or football, if they protect their best men by keeping them behind). So Tendulkar and Ganguly should open (if Sehwag is kept out for some time).
3. Only successful cricketers can continue to play matches (more than 3), if their continuous average is 50 or they average 2 wickets per match or they get xyz points. As soon as this continuous string is broken, they are rested.
4. Rest all cricketers after every 3 matches for a match (success to be defined by a point system), and bring them back for another 3 matches (2 matches if unsuccessful earlier).
5. Cricketers who are unsuccessful after a set each of 3, 2 and 1 matches are to be dropped.
6. Point system to be clear to all, since transparency in selection makes it fair to everyone.
7. Similar point system in the Domestic cricket makes it easy for cricketers to get selected, and not be dependent on selector’s whims and fancies.

If this or similar system comes into play, we should get some solid results.

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Cricket does not allow full substitutions though it is a long game, whereas Soccer or Hockey or even Basketball allow substitutions. Being a team game, it is a game of strategy, and being long it depends on continual physical endurance of all eleven players. A new rule was experimented in 2006 however, it is presently not in play. It allowed for a Captain to name a super-substitute before the toss and call the super-susbtitute in the second innings. This rule favours the team winning the toss, which gives a second advantage to the team winning the toss, besides the toss itself.

Cricket does allow for a fielder to come in for another player but in that case both the players are handicapped, the player coming in cannot bat or bowl or keep wickets, whereas the player going out cannot also do the same immediately on coming back. This affects the ability of Captain to really strategize and make unique game plans.

Also, in cricket players need an excuse to go out, and it becomes a matter of debate whereas running substitutions in hockey allow for the coach to strategize and keep important players back to allow them to gain strength for the finish.

What then could be the possible recourse?

There are many possiblities:

1. Allow captains to name super-substitutes after the toss and decision.
2. Allow players to go in and out of a team of 14 and only 11 take field. Captains would need to name the batsmen at the start of batting (an interesting angle would be to restrict the total number of batsmen to 8), and declare bowlers at the start of bowling (again the number of bowlers to be restricted to 6)
3. Like bowlers, batsmen could be called midway of his innings and sent back later. This would allow captains to seed stablizers if there is a sudden collapse and to seed blasters if there is no acceleration happening. This would make for interest strategy, though it’d be a statistician’s nightmare (but games are made for spectators not statisticians)
4. Coaches can be allowed access to Captains (and vice versa) midways so that strategizing makes the game more attractive. It may be recalled that Bob Woolmer presumed that this is perfectly ok before Hansie Cronje’s ear piece was discovered!

I would like more comments on the possibility of handling substitutions in a better manner.

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