Ninth ICC Cricket World Cup Begins in West Indies

If there is a better place to watch or play cricket than the West Indies, heaven must have a fairly good pitch. If there is a place more in need of a shot in the arm for local cricket than the West Indies, one can’t think where it could be. With the opening of the Ninth International Cricket Council’s Cricket World Cup on Wednesday in Jamaica, the world gets the treat of 6 weeks of the game in the Caribbean sunshine, and the West Indies get a chance to light a fire under local authorities to re-establish the region as an international powerhouse.

The Cricket World Cup isn’t quite on a par in the sport as the Soccer World Cup is with fans of the beautiful game. In a game laden with tradition, the ninth of anything is just too new to compete emotionally with the Ashes and international Test cricket. Moreover, the tournament is the 50-overs-an-innings, one-day version of the game. Purists accept it, but the “real’ version is the five-day kind, which is thoroughly impractical in a 16-nation tournament.

The opening match on Wednesday between the Windies and a substantial Pakistani side was precisely what the tournament needed. Two countries with a great history played a fine match, but Pakistan’s batting never quite caught fire. The first three batsmen went out too quickly, and Captain Inzamam-ul-Haq’s fine efforts failed to bring in the results. Meanwhile, Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Smith put in performances that exceeded Pakistan’s ability to cope. The home side won 241 runs to 187.

The favorite remains Australia, and frankly, the Aussie side does have the talent, experience, and confidence to take the whole thing. Their first match against Scotland (not normally thought of as a cricketing nation) was a walk over; the antipodeans won by 203 runs. At the same time, Scotland’s presence underscored why this tournament is so important for the game. As a second-tier competitor, Scottish cricket may well get a boost from simply playing the Aussies, just as basketball around the world benefited from the Dream Team playing in Barcelona’s Olympics.

For the West Indies, the opportunity to recover its greatness at the game is huge. The Windies won the Cup in 1974 and 1979, and lost the final to India in 1983. Since then, they haven’t been the same. Much of this lies not with the talent (Brian Lara 400 not out) or with the competition for talent from other sports, but rather with the cricketing authorities. They need to build a system of training players in the fundamentals and building on that as the kids progress. Former paceman Joel Garner from the 1979 team told the BBC, “We’ve neglected cricket at the development stage for years and it’s still happening. The competitions we play are all about winning, we don’t get the quality we should at that level. We might have talented cricketers but there are a lot of shortcomings. The focus should not be about winning at junior levels -- it should be about developing skills so they are ready at Test and one-day level.” Perhaps six weeks of intense play will change that.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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