Has it really been four years? Time again for the Cricket World Cup: the least important global ODI event, apart from all the others.

As the 2011 edition gets under way with a fittingly overlong example of the world's lowest and most depressing art form, the opening ceremony, it's hard to find anyone with a good word to say about the tournament.

And the chief reason is that, once again, it's been saddled with a truly appalling schedule designed to maximise revenue and to hell with all other considerations.

This year's schedule is a direct response to the disaster of four years ago, when the ineptitude of Pakistan and India saw them deservedly eliminated before the main stage of the event, the 50-percent-accurately-named Super Eight.

It meant the 2007 World Cup became a two-pronged scheduling failure: not only massively bloated, but also saddled with an inadvertently minnow-laden main group stage before the knockout rounds.

How to solve this? The inspired ICC solution was spectacularly simple: avoid an inadvertently minnow-laden main group stage before the knockout rounds by having a deliberately minnow-laden group stage before the knockout rounds.

The new format does two intentional things: first, it ensures every team - however dreadful they may be - plays a guaranteed minimum of six money-makers (or 'matches' as they are still archaically referred to in some quarters)rather than 2007's three; and second, it dramatically reduces the chances of any side "doing an Ireland" by giving second, third and possibly even fourth chances to the big guns should they slip up against a qualifier.

If you accept that Bangladesh ousting West Indies from the top four of Group B would shock no-one, the scope for upsets in the first round is minuscule.

And that means the new format does two unintentional damaging things: first, it creates a first round full of insignificant games spread over a huge period of time making this tournament potentially even duller than the last; and second that preponderence of ultimately irrelevant matches creates an environment where corruption and spot-fixing can flourish.

So what can be done for the future? Having accepted this tournament does nothing to deal with the problem that the event is too long with too many relatively unimportant games in the early stages, the ICC have acted swiftly to come up with a solution for 2015.

Again, it's breathtaking in its simplicity: take away the minnows altogether leaving only the 10 full member nations. At a stroke, the bloated fixture list is reduced without cutting the number of 'big' games or running the risk of a financially-unfortunate early exit for a superpower.

Job done.

But taking the Associate nations out is short-sighted to the point of blindness. As Graeme Swann remarked recently, by restricting it to just the established nations you are taking the World out of the World Cup. And then what are you left with? The Champions Trophy, that's what.

If cricket is serious about expanding beyond its traditional heartlands - and every sport outside America accepts that you can't really have a 'world' champion in a closed shop - then denying access to what should be the game's most high-profile event is madness.

Casting the minnows adrift is a nonsensical, counter-productive quick fix, the equivalent of a fat man losing weight by cutting off his legs: while brutally effective, it makes it far harder to get anywhere in the future.