Raising the curtain on the World Cup

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The Hindu, 11 March

IN sharp contrast with the situation in India, the run-up to the World Cup in England has been a muted affair. This is partly because cricket just doesn’t carry the weight in its native land that it carries in South Asia. Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool et al, and indeed rugby and tennis, have until this week pushed cricket to the margins of the sports pages. It’s also because England’s chances of winning the Cup are considered remote in the extreme; in the wake of the bitter disappointment of losing the Ashes so quickly and comprehensively, both fans and journalists have decided that it’s unwise to invest great hopes in this team.

Yet at the very end of their long winter of humiliation, England (followed by New Zealand) performed the cricket world a major service. By unexpectedly drubbing Australia in the finals of what had been, up till then, a dreary one-day series, they opened up a World Cup whose ultimate result had previously seemed a foregone conclusion.

Now that the mighty Aussies have been shown to be vulnerable, even the fate of the super eight round, not to mention the semi-finals and final, feels uncertain. And uncertainty is the necessary spice of an event like the World Cup, which otherwise becomes merely a confirmation of what is already known, a coronation, not a contest.

For me, it’s in the World Cup that the 50-over format comes into its own. The bi-lateral and tri-lateral series with which the cricket calendar is overfull rarely offer the varied and cumulative drama that is the stuff of World Cups. With 16, or more realistically, eight teams battling it out, each side is subjected to a greater number and variety of tests.

Strengths and weaknesses become multi-dimensional. For a batsman or bowler to make a mark in the World Cup, he has to conquer a wide array of challenges. Facing a different opponent every few days means teams have to do their homework, but also be able to think on their feet. What works against one side may not work against another.

Of course, as a result of pressures from broadcasters and sponsors, this World Cup has been needlessly extended. It now lasts considerably longer than the football or rugby world cups, and makes the Olympic games seem like the blink of an eye. Still, should one or more of the minnows pull off an upset – as Kenya did last time – then the prolonged format will have been at least partly justified.

But what makes this particular edition of the cricket World Cup most exciting is the setting. For the first and probably last time, the West Indies is playing host. The final will be held in Barbados, which boasts the largest ground in the region, seating some 25,000 spectators, equivalent to one tenth of the island’s total population. A small population – in India it wouldn’t even rate as a minor city – yet it gave us Wes Hall, Gary Sobers, Malcolm Marshall, Gordon Greenidge, and Desmond Haynes, to name but a few.

Caribbean cricket is one of global sport’s most remarkable and attractive traditions. For a disparate group of a dozen nation States with a total population of just six million to have stamped a world game so powerfully over so many years is, as far as I know, without parallel. That this tradition has been in eclipse in recent year adds piquancy to the occasion. Surely, the West Indies must be everybody’s second favourite team in this World Cup. In fact, a strong West Indian run is essential to the success of the competition. Otherwise, it will feel like it’s taking place in the no-latitude no-longitude domain of television-land, unrooted in its venue, which will become merely another backdrop for the portable global cricket circus. Without salient West Indian participation – on the field or at least in the crowd – the event could start to feel too much like one of those golf tournaments in the Persian Gulf, a holiday ghetto for the White and the wealthy.

There are great expectations for the World Cup in the Caribbean, at least among cricket officials and local politicians. However, the talk about the Cup ushering in a new era of West Indian political and economic unity, turning the hitherto fractured and ineffectual CARICOM into something like the European Union, is surely wildly optimistic. Regardless of the cricket, each Caribbean country will continue to be far more influenced by its individual relations with the U.S. and the E.U. than with its neighbours.

What is more believable is that the Cup could herald a renewal in the islands’ cricketing fortunes. Certainly, any young West Indian cricketer who seizes his chance to shine on this once-in-a-lifetime stage will find himself forever enshrined in Caribbean cricket lore.