Final chance to save World Cup

Events happened so long ago —

before we were old and grey — it

is easy to forget one thing about this

World Cup: it got off to a rather promising

start.

West Indies won the opening

match; Ireland dramatically

knocked out Pakistan;

Bangladesh upset India and

Herschelle Gibbs hit six sixes

in an over against Holland.

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But ever since, the ninth

cricket World Cup has been

ruined by tedium and tragedy, the premier one-day

tournament succumbing to

its structural weakness.

The event has been in a

tailspin since Bob Woolmer

met his death on March 18

and while you cannot blame

the organisers for that

dreadful episode, you certainly can for the fact the

tournament has dragged on

interminably.

Even International Cricket

Council chief executive

Malcolm Speed admitted the

47-day tournament had gone on too long and that the next

one in 2011 might be "seven

to 10 days shorter".

It is why Australia and Sri

Lanka are charged today

with providing a final contest

to prevent the 2007 edition

going down in history as the

worst ever. That would be

some accolade, not one to be

handed out lightly.

Sri Lanka rescued the reputation

of the 1996 event by

beating Australia in the final

with their patenting of

‘pinch-hitting’ and it is to be

hoped they can similarly

challenge the odds today.

To avoid accusations that

we are looking at recent

World Cup history through

the prism of repeated

English failure, let it be said

that England were embarrassingly

inept hosts in 1999.

Who could forget the

pathetic opening ceremony

at Lord’s, or the release of

England’s World Cup song

the day after they were eliminated?

(Everyone, actually).

South Africa four years ago,

plagued by political problems

involving Zimbabwe,

was little better, so the

Caribbean had a lot to live

down to.

It has managed this by being too thinly and

unevenly spread, both in

terms of time and geography.

The most extreme instance

was the scheduling of the

West Indies, whose playing

success was integral to that

of the whole tournament.

They were lined up with

three matches in six days in

two countries before, in the

first half of April, playing just

one game in 17 days.

Gaps of five days or a week

between games have been

the norm, contributing to

the sense of inertia even

more than unrealistic ticket

prices and the subsequent

acreage of empty stands, or

overbearing Australian-style

crowd regulations.

But the fourth poor tournament

in a row also begs the

fundamental question of

whether cricket, which is not

as big a global sport as it

likes to think, lends itself to a

World Cup at all.

Well organised defences

employed by football’s vast

array of competitive smaller

nations mean mis-matches

are far fewer in their

month-long version and

when these occur, they last

only 90 minutes anyway.

Rugby has the problem of

players needing plentiful

recovery time, but cricket is

a non-contact sport, giving

even less of an excuse for

such a torturous schedule.

The culprit, as ever, is the

ICC’s sole focus on the bottom

line and the desire to

satisfy TV paymasters.

The ICC justifies its greed

on the grounds that proceeds

from events go towards

"growing the game".

Each

Test nation will make around

£5million from the World

Cup, with associates sharing

around £20m.

Yet proliferation is not a

game at which the ICC have

proved themselves especially

skilled. While Bangladesh are

sure to come on stream as a

bona fide major nation, Zimbabwe

are being lost.

Efforts

to expand the game into the

ripe market of the U.S. have

completely failed and for

every emerging Ireland there

is a disappearing Denmark.

As the ICC rarely learns

from its mistakes, do not

expect a significantly livelier

format in 2011, despite the

right noises being made.

One excuse for the thin

spread of the World Cup here

is that so many Caribbean

sovereign nations wanted a

piece of the action and

needed to be satisfied.

If this represented a political

morass, just think of the

tribal rivalries that will be in

play next time when the

hosting spoils are divided

between Pakistan, India, Sri

Lanka and Bangladesh.

Sensible answers include

decreasing the number of

reserve rain days and having

two games per day, but

reducing the number of

teams is unlikely.

My own solution to maintain

revenue and credibility

and add context to the oneday

calendar would be to

shrink the tournament and

stage it every two years

because the World Cup is not

the peak of the sport, as it is

in football and rugby.

After 54 days of shapeless

competition and warm-ups,

that is — very regrettably —

more the case than ever.