New Delhi: Having been a part of three World Cup campaigns, former India cricket captain Rahul Dravid said that the current format of the 50-over showpiece event, starting mid February in Australia and New Zealand, is too predictable and should be improved upon.
"Don't really like it. Reason is you can almost predict who the top eigth teams are going to be. There comes a time in the tournament, and I sensed it in India in the last World Cup. I wasn't playing, I was just watching. Everyone starts to wait for the quarterfinals, because you know that those are the three big games.
"The best formats for me would be the two World Cups I played in 1999 and 2003. They had the group stage, then the super six then you went on the play a semifinal and a final. You had to play well through the tournament. It gave you bit of a chance to recover," Dravid said.
"The one in 2007, I didn't like particularly well myself. Wonder why? But I think it gave you a chance to come back. The intention was right, get the best eight teams playing each other but sometimes if you started badly, you couldn't recover," he added.
Known as the 'The Wall' of Indian cricket, Dravid exemplified the No.3 spot in the batting order and scored runs in Test and ODI cricket despite sticking to the copybook style. Now an astute analyst, Dravid believes teams' should put their best men at the top of the batting chart.
"Yeah definitely would be looking at batsmen that are not going to get nicked off early. You still want attacking batsmen, you still want guys who can play your shots even against faster bowlers, if the wickets have pace and bounce and you want batsmen that have good strong back foot game and I think that's going to be important with the two new balls as well.
"Those are the kind of guys you want to push up in front and then maybe have your power hitters and your finishers at the back end of an innings," said Dravid.
