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Last updated 05:00, March 15 2015
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COLONIAL KIDS: Australia and India, as well as England, are looking to keep cricket inclusive to suit themselves, not the sport.
OPINION:
There will be a sense of loss when this Cricket World Cup is over, a sense that summer was here on lease only, and now it is headed for the airport along with the Sri Lankans and the English and the Bangladeshis, with all their colour and clamour. So win or lose, let's enjoy it while we can, goddammit, because this Cricket World Cup is shaping up to be the best ever.
Leave the discarded jandals and empty wine bottles, there will be time enough to clear up when the last ball has been bowled. We don't like cricket, we love it. The violence and invention of the batting, the bowlers trying to keep order like policemen at a carnival, the spire of St Peter's at Adelaide and the swirl of the crowds.
And England, that sceptred isle, that seat of Mars kicked over by a country that had not even been dreamed about in the days of empire. There have been upsets before in World Cups, but none of them mattered like this one. Bangladesh's victory stuck two fingers up to England, and Australia, and India, the unholy trinity, the axis of evil, the 21st century colonialists who have sold out cricket for their own greedy ends.
So when the Bangladeshi players ran across the Adelaide Oval towards their fans, I was running with them. When they glided across the turf in joyful celebration, I was floor-surfing into the leg of the living room sofa. What now Giles Clark, in your pin-striped suit sitting on a bag of money, the face of English cricket? Where did you hide Kevin Pietersen? What have you done with England, an old-fashioned team made in your image? The world has moved on.
How I laughed when I saw the Matt cartoon in the
Telegraph, the day after England's humiliation against a country they once called East Pakistan. It pictured two robed and bearded mullahs walking along a British street, one earnestly saying to the other, "Somebody has to stop young English men travelling abroad to play cricket."
Bangladesh's victory mattered more than any other previous World Cup upset. Should we even call it an upset when, since 1992, Ireland have beaten more of cricket's full member countries at World Cups than England. About all that is left now to the country that invented cricket is flannel, like coach Peter Moores saying he would have to look at the data to analyse what went wrong against Bangladesh. Picture him sitting on the loo, computer on his lap, captioned "porcelain analysis". Ye gods.
Bangladesh's victory mattered because it was one more colourful protest against the decision to reduce the next World Cup to 10 teams. That's a decision made in India. At the 2007 World Cup, both India and Pakistan were knocked out in the group stages and the bankers and TV moguls didn't like it one bit. So while the ICC arrogantly talks about eradicating match fixing, don't believe it for a moment. They're at it themselves.
Hosts England and the other seven top teams in the ICC rankings will automatically play in the 2019 World Cup, plus two other qualifiers. But remember England, India and Australia have guaranteed status in the top echelon of the ICC rankings because they rewrote the rules between them to state that they could not be relegated. That sounds like match-fixing.
So more power to Bangladesh. Brendon McCullum said, "Passion for the game is starting to flow through and the talent is rising to the top and I expect them to become a very tough proposition over next few years." So long as they are allowed to be.
The splendidly named Tony Irish, the chief executive of the Federation (representing all the major cricket-playing countries except India) of International Cricketers' Associations, said, "One of the objectives must be to try to grow the global game. The opportunity for other countries to participate in the World Cup, the pinnacle tournament, is important . . . The ICC has 105 members - 10 full members, and a number of competitive associate members. The important thing is that the body that administers the global game needs to have a global view. The fear is that the stronger countries will just play each other more and more, and the weaker countries will have less opportunity to play the stronger countries. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer."
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This Cricket World Cup has been an opportunity for all. It has been a wonderful contrast of atmospheres, from the 70,000 Indians who crammed into the MCG to cheer on their team against South Africa, to the tighter travelling bands who have made so many friends at New Zealand's smaller grounds.
You have to hand it to the Aussies, from the 2000 Olympics to the 2015 Cricket World Cup, they are brilliant at embracing the show, and we in New Zealand are happy to be a part of it. Maybe more than just a little part of it - because for all the great shots in the World Cup, from AB de Villiers, the man whom Dale Steyn compares to Neo from
The Matrix, to Glenn Maxwell, dubbed the Big Show by teammates, the guy who topped them all is Kane Williamson.
To date Williamson played the shot of the World Cup. Context is all. He had the bottle to step away to leg, knowing he would be the gagging goat if Pat Cummins splintered his off stump. He had the technique and the nerve to hit the ball over long on for six. It was a shot for the little guys. It was a shot that typified why we love this World Cup above so many of its bumbling predecessors.
And there is so much more still to come.
