Champions Trophy: Not the final cricket deserved

Imagine the final of Wimbledon. Roger Federer is on one side of the net. Novak Djokovic on the other. They toss the coin and Federer opts to serve first. Then it starts to rain. The players scurry off into the dressing room. The fans open umbrellas and sing songs. It continues to rain. And rain. And rain. About six hours later, the players return to the court. The fans, who have been waiting patiently this entire time, are then told the players will play a single tie-break set to determine the Wimbledon champion because the final cannot be extended to Monday. Now try and imagine the players, the fans and the organisers are happy with this outcome. [caption id=“attachment_901303” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The ICC should have been better prepared for the rain. AP[/caption] And there’s the rub. You can’t because nobody would be satisfied with this situation, which is why Wimbledon’s organisers would never allow it. The men’s final has been extended to Monday on three occasions. In 2001, rain forced a Monday final, with Goran Ivanisevic beating Patrick Rafter in an epic five-setter. The extra day did nothing to dampen the sense of occasion or Ivanisevic’s ectasy and relief at finally getting his hands on the trophy. Equally importantly, it gave the fans their money’s worth. Cricket, on the other hand, has generally taken its fans for granted, which is why the final of the Champions Trophy, a 50-over tournament, ended up being a Twenty20 game. Paid good money to watch a 50-over game that lasts about eight hours? Well, the ICC can offer you a quick three-hour game instead. After all, it wasn’t their fault. They don’t control the weather. But they should have scheduled a reserve day for the final. They should have tried harder to have the final of a 50-over tournament actually be a 50-over game. The official explanation for the lack of a reserve day was that the ICC was limited to 17 days to stage the tournament since England were scheduled to play New Zealand in a T20 international on Tuesday. Essentially, the ICC told its fans that England playing New Zealand in a T20 game is more important than the final of a major global tournament. I can’t think of any other sport that would send this sort of message to its fans. The decision to have a 20-20 game as the final also raises another question – was it fair on the players? When 50-over cricket was the only limited-overs game in town, the choice of a shortened match over no match at all made sense. Now, however, most countries have different teams for each format. Alastair Cook would not have been in the side if this had been a T20 tournament, leave alone leading it. England would have had a completely different opening combination. It handed India a huge advantage because Dhoni is used to captaining in this format while Cook is not. India also benefitted from only having to play just four overs of James Anderson instead of ten. It effectively changed the very nature of the context. The game itself was an enthralling one, with plenty of twists and turns and the result was in doubt practically until the last ball. It was, in that sense, a good final. But it was not the final the Champions Trophy should have had. The fans and players deserved better. It is time cricket’s administrators woke up and stopped taking the fans for granted. If they don’t, they could risk losing their fans altogether.