The week that was in cricket (January 12-18)

With the current international cricketing calendar being pretty much round the clock, no week goes by where certain contentious issues or talking points don’t crop up and occupy the mind space of the average cricket fan. The last week was the same, with towering records being broken, ex-cricketers demanding an improvement in the behaviour of modern-day players and a prominent former Indian captain expressing his dissatisfaction with the current World Cup format where the top 8 Test teams reaching the quarter-finals of the tournament is almost guaranteed.  Here are the five biggest talking points of the past week:

#5 Current World Cup format too \"predictable\" - Rahul Dravid

Former India captain Rahul Dravid expressed his displeasure over the format that will be used during the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The 42-year-old feels that the current format is extremely predictable, in the sense that the group stages of the tournament become a mere formality with the top 8 Test playing nations almost certain to reach the quarter-final stage of the competition.

Dravid added that every game in a World Cup should hold some kind of importance, which is not the case at the moment, and added that the organisers should try to come up with ways of making the tournament shorter in the future.

The format for the 2015 World Cup is exactly the same as the one used in the 2011 edition. Despite Ireland and Bangladesh pulling off upset wins over England, the nature of the format was such that England had no real problem in getting past the group stages. With a pre-eminent figure like Dravid suggesting the need for a reconsideration, it will definitely be worth for the ICC to pay heed and have a re-look at whether the current format is hindering the interest in the early part of the tournament.