Richard Boock: Here's a strong contender for cock-up of the year

If this year's awards ceremony was to include a category for the biggest administrative blunder of the year, there would already be some high-quality nominations.

With a quarter of the annum remaining, the New Zealand Rugby Union's World Cup debacle might still lead its rival contenders, but the quality of competition is strong, and more threats are looming every day.

In what would shape as one of the most hotly contested categories on the night, the initial question seemed to involve whether the rugby ditherers would hold on to pip any number of Kingz bloopers and the late run from the Bulldogs' salary-cap scammers.

But just when all the favourites seemed clear, the International Cricket Council has chimed in with a highly deserving bid, courtesy of their bungled draw for the Champions Trophy tournament in Sri Lanka.

The people who made all the noise about contractual responsibilities during the lead-up to the tournament have provided an itinerary which might have been drawn up by one of those computers that sends pensioners million-dollar power bills.

It seemed clear from the outset that the group games needed to be organised so the seeded sides played the minnows at the start, rather than at the end of the round.

That would have seen teams such as Bangladesh, Kenya and Holland engaged in more meaningful tussles against opponents who were still hoping to qualify and, if nothing else, would have provided some much-needed momentum to the competition.

More importantly, the last games of the round would have turned into a virtual quarter-final phase, as South Africa squared off against the West Indies on Friday, Pakistan against Sri Lanka on Saturday, England against India on Sunday and New Zealand against Australia on Monday.

With the eight strongest sides involved, all four matches would have shaped as worthy quarter-final knockouts, not to mention a promoter's dream, since all but one of the games could have been predicted from the outset.

As it is, Pakistan, who were effectively eliminated from the tournament when they lost to Sri Lanka last Thursday, cannot depart until they have played Holland in a meaningless game on Saturday.

And New Zealand, having been demolished by Australia on Sunday night, find themselves having to play an irrelevant match against Bangladesh on Monday before coming home.

At a time when the ICC is making all sorts of extraordinary and extra-curricular demands on the players, even talking of suspending anyone who doesn't bow to its demands, the fiasco in Colombo has not exactly strengthened its case.

Whatever the explanation, it's hard to escape the suggestion that the ICC paid so much attention to the size of the profit, it forgot about the quality of the product.