How Formats can define Legacies

Over the last 5 years Manchester City Football Club and the Indian Men's Cricket Team have been near the top of their respective sports

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One can define Man City with the following:

• Front foot, attacking style of play
• Young team with some seniors who are among the best players in the world
• Consistently wins home and away throughout the year
• Unparalleled squad depth
• Backed by a wealthy organization
• Prone to choking in big knockout games

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This Man City side under Pep Guardiola has already been mentioned as one of the all-time great sides in Europe

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One can define the current Indian Men's Cricket team with the following:

• Front foot, attacking style of play
• Young team with some seniors who are among the best players in the world
• Consistently wins home and away throughout the year
• Unparalleled squad depth
• Backed by a wealthy organization
• Prone to choking in big knockout games

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This Indian side is currently defined as one that has repeatedly failed to get over the line, unlike previous sides which have (who were perhaps not as complete in terms of squad quality)

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So why is it that we define Manchester city with the first 5 criteria and this Indian team with just the last one. I've had 5 days post the final to mull over this and I have realized the reason isn't much about how good the teams are but rather the format in which the sport is played.

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Manchester City's recent legacy has been built on their iron grip over the English Premier League (a.k.a. EPL, the most popular football league in the world). The EPL follows a classic league format where 20 teams play each other home and away over the course of a season and the team with the most points at the end wins (Essentially the IPL without the playoffs). They have won it 5 out of the last 6 years by dominating oppositions week in week out with an attacking brand of football whilst breaking record after record. The 2 key reasons to their success - a brilliant manager and what has often been termed as "the best squad in Europe". The vast resources at their disposal has given them the ability to possess 2-3 great players for each position across the pitch which helps in squad rotation to ensure squad freshness. "Man City's B team can win the league" said Premier League winning manager Jose Mourinho?a few years ago. The only competition where City has struggled is the UEFA Champions league, a knockout competition where they have often uncharacteristically underperformed and fallen short in the semi-final or final (sound familiar?). Of course, we all know they overcame that final hurdle and lifted the trophy this May but even prior to the that this team was being discussed alongside all-time great English teams (most of which had won the Champions League)

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Now to India. Like Man City, India has shown consistent excellence over the last few years. 2 excellent examples can be the fact that we have qualified for both the World Test Championship finals played so far (a competition that aggregates points for test matches played over a 2 year cycle) and won all 9 of the group stage games in the recent world cup (a tournament where NZ won just 5 and still qualified for the semi-final). Similar to Man City, the Indian squad has the ability to choose from a talent pool of experienced veterans and young gems. This is attributable to the vast cricket loving population of our country and the systems put in place to groom young players. In fact in recent times, the IPL has been widely heralded for its ability of showcasing wonderful new young Indian cricketers year after year and giving them an opportunity to play against the best of the world. With the plethora of talent available, India often has 2 teams playing simultaneously and often we even see the "B" team win a bilateral series against a test playing nation. However, (unfortunately) all of cricket's highest honours are decided by knockout games and this team has just not been able to deliver that final KO punch.

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Weirdly enough in such times the squad depth which was a widely perceived strength turns into a sort of poisonous chalice. Not a second has passed after Maxwell hit those winning runs in Ahmedabad that people had already started saying "Should have played Ashwin" or "If only Hardik was fit" or "Oh we missed Rishabh". Prior to the 2019 World Cup we famously had the Number 4 conundrum where a wide range of options seemed to have perplexed the management which ended up in multiple options being tested during the world cup itself. Harsha Bhogle often says "We have 1.3 Billion, but only 11 make the team". In fact, Man City also faced a similar scenario in previous years when they were knocked out of the Champions league, pundits blamed the manager of "overthinking" games and "not playing the best XI" - these are the same pundits who glorify the small tactical changes he makes throughout the year, when they work out. Imagine having 2-3 great players for each position and that being a problem for you.

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And therein lies the problem, the Indian cricket team unfortunately doesn't play a sport which rewards the thing it is really good at (consistently winning over a period of time), but rather what it isn't good at (an excellent performance on one particular day). The former can be built on the basis of an amazing squad while the latter requires more of a clutch gene (which the Australian are known for). Since the EPL's structure is the exact opposite i.e. rewarding consistent excellence and pardoning 1-2 stumbles, Man City's legacy is the exact opposite despite having similar capabilities. In fact, if the 2023 Cricket World Cup was played like the EPL (i.e. ending with India having a 100% league record), this Indian side would probably be heralded as one of the best ever, if not the best - similar to Man City's 2018 team that amassed a record breaking 100 points (winning 32/38 games and losing only twice). However, since the formats are what they are this Man City will be brought up in debates for years to come and (unfortunately) this Indian teams excellence might just be lost in the history books.

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If you're not yet convinced let me put it another way. Imagine there's a 17 year old girl studying for her IIT entrance exam. She's considered one of the brightest in her batch and is able to complete complex calculations at rapid rates in her mind. However, her writing speed isn't great which has caused her to run out of time in previous examinations. But that doesn't really matter this time since her IIT entrance is an MCQ exam - she'll make it!

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But what if she wasn't born 17 years ago, but rather 47 years ago and gave the exam back in its pre MCQ days (when it was hand written). She might not have made it then.

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So what has changed? The quality of the candidate or just the format in which they were tested?

Food for thought