Old order changeth?

That seems to be the question on every cricket fan's mind with the Aussies losing 5 games on the trot now. Adam Gilchrist says there is too much of cricket and the Aussies didnt want to play Kiwis. While the issue of fatigue cant really be disregarded, it does appear that the famous Aussie assembly line is starting to crack, and is no longer churning out top notch replacements for the superstars like Gilchrist, Ponting or McGrath.

Michael Holding, on the other hand criticises the ICC for including too many minnows and dragging on the world cup for 2 months. I, for one, agree fully with him. At cricket's showpiece we need a short but memorable burst of high quality competitive games and not a long drawn mediocre set of contests interspersed with some quality cricket.

Each group has 2 minnows and 2 of the stronger sides. Thus, of the 6 matches played in the group, only 2 are supposed to be competitive, namely the ones between the 2 strong sides and the ones between the 2 minnows (although once again, this probably would be a game not too many would be interested in anyway). So, we have a potential humdinger only 1 out of 3 games in the intial stages.