Suggestions for the World Cup 2016/7

 Suggestions for the World Cup 2016/7
Despite a number of emails from followers of this World Cup, no one has been able to explain why ALL points from the group stages are not carried forward into the 6s. I have also not heard any explanation from the experts on TV commentary. If a system is in place which no one understands, should it be there? And anyway to exclude the matches from the initial group against the sides eliminated seems to be to be rather insulting. It is suggesting to those sides that they might as well have stayed at home as they made no contribution to the Cup. If that were really true then you shouldn't have asked them in the first place!
** NRR is presumably supposed to encourage teams to win as swiftly as possible, or obtain as convincing a win as possible, but scenarios easily arise when it would pay a team to do exactly the opposite and that is hardly in the interests of providing an exciting spectator sport. You could hardly blame a team who took advantage of this. The same problem may arise with the 'no points carried forward' situation above. Yes - I know that you could throw a match to ensure you'd meet the team you'd rather face in the next round, but I think this scenario is rather less likely.

• Introduce DRS. This is the major tournament in the sport after all, and if it's good enough for the guys...
• All points from the group stages to be carried forward.*
• Decide the table position at the end of the Super 6s (if that format is retained) based on 'who beat who' when those two teams met. If that match was a no result, check with the matches against the next lower team in the table and so on. In the very unlikely event that you reach the bottom of the table (including all the matches in the group stage*) then count the number of wickets lost by those two sides in all matches. The lowest goes top. I suspect another tie breaker could be found beyond this without the nonsense of NRR being required.**
• Play semi-finals and a final -  this should make it less likely (though not impossible) that teams reach the final when perhaps their earlier performance didn't merit it.
• Use international umpires as is customary in bilateral tournaments in this sport. The standard in this latest competition has been particularly poor in some games and therefore some teams have been badly disadvantaged while others have not. There will always be some variation but it has been more marked this time than I can ever recall it.
• Do not play day/night matches in situations where the team batting first has such a huge advantage that they have to throw the match away rather than win it.
• I typed the above immediately following the end of the Word Cup 2012/13. However, it would seem others have given rather more thought to this problem than I have. I have received a pdf from Chris Langman which has given me much food for thought. He sets out a number of principles he feels any set of rules should follow and then outlines a format which complies with them and gives rise to no more matches than were used in the recent tournament. It is, in my opinion, an inspired piece of work, and I recommend you read it! What he has come up with is revolutionary. If you have any thoughts on his ideas then do email me and I will pass them on.