There’s no dearth of screaming blurbs about the cricket’s biggest showpiece which starts on Saturday – the World Cup comes back to Australia & New Zealand after two decades; 14 countries; 49 matches and a slew of new rules. And it’s going to go on for 46 days!

It should be time for cricket fans in this part of the world to rub their hands with joy – notwithstanding the unfavourable timings which requires you to set up the alarm clock to get up at the wee hours and catch the action. However, all that I see around are the diehard fans talking about anticipation of specific matches for now – like India versus Pakistan or the opener between England and Australia – rather than the tournament as a whole.

The zing in the air still seems to be missing, largely because the discerning cricket fan knows that the first round is going to be a prolonged and rather predictable one under the current format. While it may be presumptious to think that the game’s jewel in the crown is losing it’s sheen, the challenge ahead of International Cricket Council (ICC) should be to come up with a viable format whereby they can clip the duration of the tournament to a maximum of five weeks.

The ambivalence that the ICC is famous for has seen them tinkering with the format of the World Cup every time – alongwith the number of teams – in recent times. Midway during the 2011 event, they announced that the 2015 edition will comprise of 10 teams – which raised a major hue and cry from the Associate countries. While four associates continue to remain in the fray (Afghanistan, UAE, Ireland and Scotland), the groupings this time virtually makes it a ‘Mission Impossible’ for them to make the quarter finals.

The format where 14 teams have been divided into two groups – with the top four from each making it to quarter finals – has been done with a clear blueprint for the money-spinning teams to stay in the tournament for as long as possible and avert a disaster like the 2007 World Cup. The first round exits of both India and Pakistan then had spelt a doom for the TRPs, not to speak advertisers scurrying for the exit clause to cancel their agreements.

The danger is, to say in the words of Rahul Dravid, that it makes the first stage – which runs for a good one month – “too long and predictable.” At a time when cricket fatigue seems to be taking its toll on the most diehard of fans and Twenty-20 format has captured the imagination, it may be quite a test of patience for fans to sit through inconsequential matches once the composition of the top four from each group starts taking shape.

Just ponder over the volume of top class one-day cricket the viewers had been subjected to since the New Year: the tri-series between India, Australia and England; a seven-match series between South Africa and the West Indies; a series between New Zealand and Sri Lanka followed by a mini-series between the Kiwis and Pakistan.

It’s time for the ICC to devise a format where the World Cup can retain its eminence without losing the world – rather than just toy with the Associate countries’ existence at every opportunity!