4 reasons why the ICC World Cup 2019 could be the most exciting one ever

The upcoming ICC World Cup will have just ten teams, unlike the last World Cup which had 14 teams. The format of the tournament will be a single group comprising 10 teams playing against each other in a round-robin fashion. The top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals.

The ICC's decision to reduce the number of teams from 14 to 10 has received severe criticism across the cricketing world. However, ICC stood firm stating that the tournament will be more meaningful if it has the most competitive teams.

England have received direct qualification since they are the host of the tournament. India, Australia, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka have gotten qualified by their superior ICC ODI ranking. Afghanistan and West Indies have got qualified through the 2018 Cricket World Cup Qualifier which had participation from ten teams.

Here are the four key reasons to believe that the upcoming edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup will be the most exciting World Cup ever.

#1 Absence of Associate Member Nations for the first time

This World Cup will have only 10 teams - four less than the 2015 World Cup - resulting in an outcry from the ICC Associate Nations that they are ignored from cricket's grand event.

The ICC has made a smarter but not a popular decision here. The Associate Nations struggled to make an impact in the past few World Cups. In the last edition, Scotland and UAE lost all their six games. Similarly, in the 2011 Cricket World Cup, Kenya and Netherlands couldn't manage a win out of their possible 12 games.

With all due respect to the Associate Nations, the intensity of games have been diluted with a lot of meaningless matches. Now with just 10 teams, every match is going to be competitive.

#2 No clear favourites to win the World Cup

Australia won five of the last eight ODI Cricket World Cups

Pakistan entered the Champions Trophy 2017 tournament as the least favourite team to win the trophy. However, they won the cup by beating tournament favourites like England and India. This is the best example of the current state of the ODI Cricket. No team is a clear favourite to win the World Cup 2019.

Australia's domination of the world cricket for the past two decades have taken some sheen out of the tournament. Since 1999, Austalia has won four of the five World Cups.

However, things have changed since 2015. Australia has gone down from the summit so fast that they are clearly not the favourites to win the upcoming World Cup. England, who are playing excellent cricket in the past four years, has the tendency to slide in the crucial moments. The other teams like India, South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan are as good as England on a given day.

With no clear favourites, this World Cup will have more twists and turns than any other World Cup.

#3 Round-robin tournament with just one group

The ICC Cricket World Cup 1992 followed a similar Round-robin schedule with nine teams

Since the 1996 World Cup, there has been more than one group in World Cups. There were possibilities of one team getting an easier knock-out draw compared to that of another team. For instance, Australia won the 2007 ICC World Cup without facing major teams like India and Pakistan even once.

Cricket cannot be treated like football or hockey as the number of teams participating in the World Cup are very less. Ideally, one team should play against all other teams at least once before the knock-out stages.

The last time we had round-robin for all the teams was in 1992 where nine teams played against each other before the knock-outs.

Here, every team will have to face the other nine teams to find a place in the top four. This adds more competition and fairness in the upcoming tournament which was missing in the previous few five editions.

#4 No unnecessary quarter-finals unlike other World Cups

There won't any Quarter-finals in the upcoming edition of ICC World Cup 2019

Why do we need a quarter-final (QF) when there are just 10 competitive teams in a tournament?

The quarter-finals dilute the importance of the round-robin games in World Cups. For instance, in the previous two World Cup editions, seven teams from each group fought for four places to grab their QF entry. Out of the seven teams, only five teams have had a genuine chance to qualify as the other two were Associate Nations.

Only the seven knock-out games have had pertinence in the previous two editions. Now, the ICC has learnt from their past mistakes as they removed the unnecessary QFs from the World Cup schedule.

With only four spots up for the grab instead of usual eight, every game will become crucial in the upcoming World Cup 2019.