Saturday, February 28, 2009

Unbuttered bread

It is no secret that the BCCI is not on my list of favorite organizations. But they make it so easy for me to justify my disdain and disregard.

Right now, in grounds all over India the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the BCCI's premier ODI trophy for Ranji teams is being held. But look at the BCCI website. For the life of me I cannot find even a piddly link to it. Except for the 15 or so members of the Indian team slugging it out with New Zealand, the rest of the best cricketers are playing and there's no mention of it on the official website of the organization that is, ahem, organizing it! But you will find a prominent video of Lalit Modi plumping the IPL's second season. Priorities, priorities.

If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make any noise?

Well, luckily for cricket fans, the BEST sports website in the world (in my jaundiced opinion) is CricInfo. Check out how detailed CricInfo's coverage of the tournament is.

While on this topic, BRB/AV points out something strange about the tournament itself. Look at the points table at the end of the "league" phase. Here are the top teams in each group with their win-loss record:
  • Uttar Pradesh (4-1)
  • Bengal (4-0)
  • Delhi (4-1)
  • Tamil Nadu (5-0)
  • Mumbai (2-2)
Now look at the schedule for the "knockout" stage of the tournament.

Notice something strange? The only team to go 5-0 (Tamil Nadu) is playing a pre-quarterfinal game, while a team with a 2-2 record (Mumbai) gets a bye and goes directly into the quarterfinals! I have looked all over for the rules for deciding which teams get a bye and which do not, but I could not find them anywhere. If someone out there can, please help us out!

(Luckily, Tamil Nadu's pre-quarterfinal match was washed out and they got through to the quarter-finals without breaking a sweat, but why did that even have to happen?).

Finally, at the quarter-final stage, check out the batsman at the #2 spot on the run-scorers list. Why isn't he in the Test squad, at least?

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