The first week of June 1975 in England was a very strange one indeed. On the Monday, June 2, cricket was snowed off at Buxton and a few desultory flakes were also spotted at Lord’s – as well as outside my bedroom window in Northamptonshire. This seemed like the continuation of a run of dismal summers, and I remember feeling awfully depressed about the then not unfashionable notion of global cooling. On the Tuesday play resumed at Buxton: Derbyshire were bowled out for 42 and 87 on the snow-affected wicket to give Lancashire victory by a trifling innings and 348. By the Thursday the weather was starting to perk up and the British electorate, in a mood of sunny contentment, voted by a 2–1 margin to stay inside what was then called the Common Market, and is now the European Union. On the Saturday cricket’s newest tournament began at four English Test grounds simultaneously, the game’s relationship with the still black-and-white medium of television still being unsophisticated. This was the World Cup or, as the authorities preferred to call it, the Prudential Cup; they were already quite with-it about getting the sponsors’ name up front and centre. The opening match at Lord’s did not even attract a full house, and after England delighted the crowd with a massive score, 334 for four, India’s captain Sunil Gavaskar bizarrely chose to opt for exaggerated bloodyminded batting practice, scoring 36 out of 132 for three in 60 overs. But by the time the competition ended just two weeks later it was an unmitigated triumph. The first World Cup final, West Indies v Australia, was both the longest day of the year and the longest day international cricket had ever known. It began with Roy Fredericks hooking Dennis Lillee into kingdom come, but falling on his stumps as he did so. It ended nine and threequarter hours later after an unforgettable contest, with Clive Lloyd, the man of the match, lifting the trophy. The stars and the weather and the players and the moment had all aligned and cricket, as sometimes happens, had been touched by magic. Another World Cup? Bring it on! On Valentine’s Day 2015, at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, cricket’s 11th World Cup begins. There will be huge local enthusiasm: the tournament has not been to the Antipodes for nearly a quarter of a century; the New Zealand team is on a roll; and the populace has no English-style reservations about its preference for one-day cricket. It will finish in Melbourne, not 14 days later, like the first one, but 43 days later. The 2014 football World Cup in Brazil lasted 31 days. For any sporting administrator, this is the template. Football’s ruling body FIFA is a disgrace, yet it runs a tournament that cannot fail, whether it is staged in Qatar or on Mars. The simplicity of the sport, its global appeal and the 85-year patina of tradition all combine to make this the apogee of the planet’s sporting cycle. As an event, the Olympics is No. 1 but most of the actual competition is kak. The FIFA World Cup holds
its appeal throughout even for spectators whose team invariably goes out early (England) or never even gets a sniff of the finals (India). The whole planet holds its breath. Cricket’s World Cup now has 40 years worth of history. Has it spread the game of cricket? No. Despite mass migration from the subcontinent across the globe, the geography of cricket in terms of competitive power has budged hardly at all, except in the strange and special case of Afghanistan. Has the World Cup showcased the sport and enthused new generations? Not much. Is it the undisputed pinnacle of the sport? Certainly not. Has it constructed a treasure-house of unforgettable moments? Well, yes, but the contents are a bit of a mish-mash and not all of them are worth treasuring. There have been 352 World Cup ties played so far; the return on capital from this memory-bank, I would suggest, has not been great. The first problem is that, quite obviously, toplevel cricket is not a global game. Actually, this is even more true of rugby union, let alone rugby league. But these two are more able to make a big deal of their quadrennial highlight, because they have nothing else like it. In cricket there is a World Cup, or something very like it, along every minute. There is the Champions Trophy and the Twenty20 World Cup and various mini-World Cups... and we have only just escaped the loopy idea of a Test match semi-final and final. Modern cricket is mainly designed to provide cheap product for minority TV stations which involves endless reiteration; this is not compatible with world-stopping drama. Furthermore, cricket is no longer one game but three, and they are becoming increasingly estranged from each other. I would guess only a minority now follow all three with enthusiasm. And some players are finding it hard to excel at everything and have begun specialising. And then there is the format of the event itself, designed to produce maximum content (about a third of those 43 days will comprise actual playing time) not maximum excitement. There are eight teams out of 14 that matter in the World Cup. In the betting odds, it’s 250 to 1 against the ninth, Bangladesh, and 1000 to 1 anyone else. The whole of the first month will be spent whittling down the 14 to guess how many? Eight. Logically, this is an even worse system than the Super Eight method dumped after the dreadful 2007 tournament in West Indies. In 2011 England lost to both Bangladesh and Ireland but were still the only one of the three to qualify for the quarter-finals. It is a recipe for boredom, complacency and, dare I say it, potential corruption. Curiously, cricket’s World Cup has always been continued overleaf WisdenEXTRA • World Cup Special
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