Cricket World Cup formats have evolved over the years and at times they have also caused considerable controversy as a result of that. One such example is the 1999 World Cup when a slightly more-convoluted-than-usual format led to a controversy in a game between Australia and West Indies.
What was the 1999 World Cup format?
In the previous cricket World Cup tournaments, there had been two rounds – a first round in which teams had featured in a round-robin format, followed by a knockout round.
With the number of teams steadily having increased to 12 for this edition in 1999, the ICC decided to tweak things around instead of directly having a quarterfinal round after the group stage of the tournament. They added a Super Six round, another round-robin stage.
It worked like this.
The 12 teams participating in the tournament were divided into two groups (A and B) of six apiece. Each team played five matches in the first round, with the top three teams from each of the two groups making it to the next round – the Super Six stage.
In the Super Six round, each of the three qualifying teams from Group A would play all three qualifying sides from Group B. Each team would also carry forward the points they had earned from their matches against the fellow qualifiers.
What that meant was it wasn’t just enough to qualify for the second round, it also needed teams to ensure they qualified by winning their matches against the other qualifying teams from their group to ensure they carried forward those points.
All in all that added some edge to the format but little did one predict the kind of farce that would follow.
How did the Australia-West Indies game descend into a controversy?
In the Group A of the tournament India, Zimbabwe and England finished on six points apiece.
With two spots available for the Super Six stage with South Africa having already made it through with eight points, it was India (with an NRR of 1.28) and Zimbabwe (with 0.02) who qualified while England (-0.33) were knocked out in Group A.
The same scenario emerged in Group B too with things slightly more interesting here.
Pakistan, with eight points, went through to Super Six without any trouble but the battle heated up between Australia, New Zealand and West Indies.
Australia headed into their final group game against West Indies with four points but knowing they just needed a win to qualify for the next stage given their far superior net run-rate. West Indies already had six points while New Zealand, who were on four points, were to take on Scotland the next day.
The twist here was that teams carried points from the first round into the Super Six stage but from only those matches against teams who also qualified for the next round as explained in the previous section.
So if Australia beat West Indies and both teams qualified for the next round, Australia would start off the Super Six stage with four points. If Australia qualified along with New Zealand then they would start off with zero points because the Black Caps had beaten the Aussies earlier!
It was in Australia’s best interests to not just beat West Indies but also get West Indies to go through, and the only way that was happening was if West Indies finished on a NRR over New Zealand’s NRR (or if New Zealand lost to Scotland but the chances of that happening were very bleak).
Australia decided to take matters in their own hands.
They bowled West Indies out for 110 and then got to 62/4 in 19.3 overs in response when captain Steve Waugh was joined by Michael Bevan. The duo began a stand of 49 runs for the fifth wicket for which they batted on for 21.1 overs in a bid to not allow West Indies’ net run-rate to go down too much.
It was a farcical effort as Waugh and Bevan tried to game the system by blocking out half-volleys and leaving innocuous deliveries alone in the middle of their chase. To be fair to them, they were attempting to play to the format rules, ensuring they get into the Super Stage with a better chance of qualifying for the semifinals.
Writing in his column in the Guardian
after the game, British journalist Matthew Engel castigated the situation in the following way. It obviously didn’t help that his country and the hosts England had been sent packing from the competition that day too.
The day England disappeared from the World Cup also turned out to be the day the tournament disappeared up its own rear end. Some have thought the complexities of the qualification system unfathomable. Yesterday the Australians fathomed them, and the result was a dreadful and shameful game of cricket.
Still, Australia managed to get to their target in 40.4 overs which pushed West Indies’ NRR to +0.5 when it could have plummetted a lot more had Australia finished it off in, say, 27 overs (you can get a far better understanding of how the net run-rate works here).
What that meant was that for New Zealand to qualify for the Super Six round, they needed to not just win their final group game but also either do that by over 100 runs batting first or chase their target down in about 25 overs.
Fortunately for them, New Zealand were playing Scotland, cricketing newcomers at the highest level.
Did Australia succeed in their strategy?
Unfortunately for Australia, their plan went south as New Zealand smashed Scotland with 32.1 overs to spare in their last group game – it was enough to get them to six points (same as Australia and West Indies) and with an NRR of +0.58!
That didn’t stop Australia from winning all their three Super Six games against India, South Africa and Zimbabwe and qualifying for the semifinals by finishing second on the points table ahead of South Africa and New Zealand.
What happened after this?
The 2003 World Cup format was changed a little to not just include points from the matches against fellow qualifiers but also from those matches which were played against teams which did not qualify.
So four points were carried forward for each win that a team got against a fellow qualifier, 1 point against a team which did not qualify. Similarly, in case of No Results, two and 0.5 points were carried forward.
From the 2007 World Cup, this format was used again but in a way that it did not affect things too much.
In that tournament, 16 teams were divided into four groups with each side playing three games and the top two teams from each of the groups making the Super Eight competition.
Teams qualifying for the Super Eight stage played six matches and carried forward points from only that match which consisted of the two qualifying teams from that group.
In 2011 and 2015 World Cup, the first round or the group stage was followed by quarterfinals, semifinals and the final while the 2019 and 2023 World Cup, the 10-team event saw a round-robin competition followed directly by semifinals.