Once upon a time triangular one-day tournaments were a regular feature in the game of cricket. For almost three decades, this format of competition mesmerised the audience and one-day cricket, as a result, took a giant leap forward. The seeds of triangular cricket tournaments were sown by the Australian businessman and media tycoon Kerry Packer with his rebel World Series Cricket coming into the picture in 1977-78.
The Packer way
Packer was keen to exploit the untapped potential of one-day cricket by staging a tri-series involving the Australia, West Indies and Rest of the World teams. Packer knew that the potential of a multi-lateral tournament was much more than a bilateral one, as was suggested by the popularity of the first World Cup in England in 1975.
From the late 1970s, Australia hosted an annual tri-series every summer until 2007-08 when India defeated Australia in the best-of-three finals by 2-0 in the Commonwealth Bank Series. (It revived the series in 2011-12.) The format became so popular that apart from Australia, cricket boards by the 1990s became very interested in hosting multilateral tournaments on home grounds. For example, India hosted the Nehru Cup in 1989, the Hero Cup in 1993, the Titan Cup in 1996 and Independence Cup in 1997. Other countries too organised multi-team tournaments.
These ODI tournaments were more keenly followed than bilateral ODI face-offs in general. This is for many reasons. In multilateral tournaments, one gets to see many teams participate and make a bid for the same trophy. The permutations and combinations of match results creates a unique interest, allowing fans to constantly examine ways in which a particular team can reach the knock-out stage or clinch the title.
Players often display more cricketing brilliance on the field as they would be watched by more viewers than in a bilateral ODI series. The most interesting feature of these tournaments is that they seldom get boring. On the other hand, a seven-match bilateral ODI series can become monotonous if one team holds inordinate sway in the opening matches.
In the last 15 years, there has been no noteworthy quadrangular or pentangular cricket tournament except the Asia Cup. Today, triangular cricket tournaments too are facing an existential crisis. Due to the bilateral nature of busy cricket schedules and the mushrooming of Twenty20 cricket leagues, the space for triangular cricket tournaments has been squeezed.
Clearing the calendar
The International Cricket Council and national cricket boards need to find space in the annual calendar to play at least one such tournament a year. For example, would it not have been more exciting for India to have hosted a tri-series with Australia and New Zealand this season?
