ICC pre-seeds, surprises unfold

Ahead of every major sporting event, analysts, ex-players and fans alike come up with predictions about how the tournament will pan out. Debates rage over which team will get knocked out early, who will proceed to the next phase and, eventually, who will lift the trophy.

Such speculations are usually welcomed as they add colour to the buildup of the tournament. However, the one stakeholder that should never indulge in such guesswork are the organisers themselves because if they begin forecasting their own events, the question of fairness would inevitably arise.

And that’s exactly what International Cricket Council (ICC) has done in the 2024 and the ongoing edition of the ICC T20 World Cup with the pre-seeding of the Super Eight.

In both World Cups, 20 teams divided into four groups competed in the first round and the top two teams from each made it to the Super Eights, where they were again split into two groups of four.

In typical ICC fashion, the grouping of the first round was done at random. No draws were held, no official explanation for how it was done was conveyed, only a media release announced four five-team groups with India and Pakistan, like clockwork, grouped together yet again.

While other major sports organisations like FIFA and UEFA have been holding glitzy draw events for decades, where teams are placed in different pots according to their previous results and stature and get seeded into groups at random, ICC has carried on with its closed door grouping ever since the inaugural ODI World Cup in 1975.

Moreover, ICC has also been guilty of tinkering with the World Cup’s structure in every few editions. The first few ODI World Cups had teams divided into multiple groups in the first round, the 1992 edition saw the introduction of the round-robin league system, which was scrapped from the next edition.

The 2019 and 2023 editions saw the return of the round-robin system. However, the marquee event will revert to the multi-group system in the 2027 edition.

The T20 World Cup, similarly, has gone through changes across editions, the latest and the most significant one being the introduction of the pre-seeding system.

Through this system, the ICC, on the basis of T20I rankings, predicted which eight teams would come out of the first round and declared which group they would compete in the second phase, regardless of whether they finish as group champions or runners-up.

The only way this grouping could be altered is if a weaker team sprung a surprise and eliminated a higher-ranked side. And ironically, it has happened in both editions.

Last time, it was the USA who forced their way into the Super Eight, knocking out Pakistan, and this time, it is Zimbabwe, who have eliminated Australia, beaten co-hosts Sri Lanka to march their way into the Super Eights as group champions.

If the USA and Zimbabwe’s qualifications were examples of how pre-tournament speculations sometimes get overturned by the spontaneity of a sporting event, the awkward distribution of the teams in the Super Eights exposed why one should avoid predicting what will happen in a tournament solely based on rankings.

Zimbabwe are placed in Group 1, replacing Australia, alongside West Indies, India and South Africa, who also finished at the top of their respective groups.

Meanwhile, all four runners-up -- England, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- are in Group 2.

This bizarre grouping goes against the conventional norm of handing an advantage to whoever performed better in the first round. Instead, the runners-up are comparatively being rewarded, getting grouped with teams who are comparatively less in-form.

The ICC claims it pre-seeded the Super Eights for logistic reasons, giving fans a heads-up about where their team is likely to play, making it easier to make necessary travel arrangements.

But this decision undermines the very essence of a multi-team tournament -- unpredictability. In trying to control the uncontrollable, ICC has once again struggled to act like a truly global sporting body.