New format needed for U-19 tournament

The ICC's format for the world youth tournament needs to be changed, particularly with the knockout phase where one bad match is enough to undo all the hard work in getting there, writes Geoff Longley in the Press. After the first-round pool matches teams went straight into the quarter-finals, semis and final while those knocked out were left to play off for the minor placings.

A better system may have been to keep the four pools of four, but start playing them immediately the teams had arrived instead of having two full rounds of practice games. If teams want practice games, arrange them beforehand as most did.