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.

More non chess stuff

The more I play chess, the less I seem to blog about it. Instead of coming up with something suitably 'chessy' I'd like to congratulate the New Zealand Cricket team for winning their World Cup semi final against India. But to at least have some chess content, India's attempts to get over the line reminded me of trying to mate your opponent after blundering a piece in the opening. In India's case is was more than one piece, but as in chess, the margin of error was so narrow that once more wickets fell, it was all over.

Another World Cup

Lots of late nights store, with the Cricket World Cup running for the next month or so. One of the interesting things for this edition is that they have dispensed with the pool system and gone for a singe round robin qualifier. Each of the 10 teams plays each other once, and then the top 4 qualify for the final. While this format is probably the best for getting the best 4 teams into the final, the notorious English weather may have a part to play, with washed out games being the equivalent of a drawn game. But unlike chess, the teams don;t have a say in which games are drawn, so pity the team needing a win in the final round, just as the heavens open ...

And speaking of cheating ...

The Australian Cricket Team is quite fortunate that FIDE isn't running world cricket (in so so many ways I must add). I'm not sure what the exact equivalent for 'ball tampering' in chess is (probably clock tampering), but if that sort of cheating went on at say a Chess Olympiad, I would expect both player and captain (or coach) to no longer be playing for the rest of the event. Of course cricket doesn't have a 'send off' rule (so the players involved can continue in this Test), but players can be suspended from future matches, which is what I expect will happen here.

World Cup Winners

Tried to watch the start of the 2007 Cricket World Cup Final between Australia and Sri Lanka, but rain delayed the start, so I missed Adam Gilchrists spectacular 100. I almost missed the end of the Final as well, but this can be blamed on the decision to end the game in complete darkness.
The win by Australia is its 3rd in a row, and as usual there are those who say that this is bad for cricket. I guess the thinking is that sport is more interesting when it is a contest, and when it isn't a contest, it is no longer interesting. Personally I don't see it that way. To me competition is (mainly) about doing your best, and if one sides "best" is far superior to everyone else's, then I can enjoy watching the skill and abilities of the winners.
In one sense it brings to mind Bobby Fischer's run of 19 (or 20) straight wins during the lead up to the 1972 World Championship Match. While I was too young to remember comments at the time, reading the coverage of Fischer's run, both from that period, and in retrospect, no one seemed to think that this was bad for chess. The same goes for Fischers 11-0 win of the 64/64 US Championship. Rather than being bad for US chess, it inspired a generation of players to try harder to keep up.

BTW Both the Canberra Raiders and ACT Brumbies also won this weekend, so all in all it was a good sporting weekend.