Tuesday 16 July 2019

A pretty poor tie-break

Finding a 'perfect' tie-break is a pretty inexact science in most sports. The better ones at least still have some notion of the game remaining as a contest, rather than just stopping at some point and declaring a winner.
So the tie-breaking method to decide the Cricket World Cup was pretty poor by this standard. The game was tied after 50 overs, and then tied after the "Super Over", which is the equivalent of a penalty shootout. The trophy was then awarded to England on 'most boundaries scored' which sounds like something chosen by a committee who didn't think it would ever be required. In chess terms this would be like deciding a drawn World Championship match on "most number of checks".
The most obvious result would have been to share the trophy, which is a policy that I've also been in favour of in a lot of chess events I've been involved in. But failing that, "head to head", "least wickets lost", or "finishing position" would have all probably made more sense.

1 comment:

Garvin said...

Least wickets lost is how Australia advanced against South Africa in the Semi Finals of the 1999 World Cup in England after the scores were tied. I can not remember many grumblings about how Australia advanced with that tie break rule.

The current finals rule is absurd and there are many better alternatives, even if some might not be that popular, in no particular order.

1) Least wickets lost
2) Result between the teams in the group stage (it is all play all in the group stage)
3) Come back the next day and replay the match