Owzat!

References in this journal of late to the great game of cricket have been conspicuous by their absence. There are two reasons for this…

The first is that – though cricket is indeed played in this most English of Canadian backwaters – it is not that readily consumed by the casual follower of the game, either as a participant or simply as one who likes to watch the odd encounter. Finding out what is happening and where takes some effort and the organisations concerned seem (to me at any rate) somewhat cliquish and unwelcoming. As a result I have seen very little cricket here.

Secondly, back in the old country the game’s governing body – the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – following the brilliant Ashes victory in 2005 decided to do their level best to put people off following the national sport by selling the TV rights to Murdoch’s Sky channel, thus ensuring that there be no free to air coverage. The ultimate effect of this massively mistaken policy was that the recent Women’s Football World Cup garnered (for the first time) huge and enthusiastic TV audiences (around 11.7 million in the UK for the England/US semi-final) whilst those for the the concurrent Cricket World Cup languished at around the half a million mark.

When England made it through to the final – facing a New Zealand side who had somewhat unexpectedly beaten India in the semi-finals – Sky finally relented and agreed to Channel 4 showing live coverage of the event. As a result the viewing figures for the final reached 4.5 million – which numbers speak for themselves.

As for the game itself – it was a total doozy! Two very evenly matched sides battling on a pitch on which it was difficult to score at a high rate ensured that a nail-biting finish would be the order of the day. One outrageous piece of good fortune in the final over – with the ball deflecting to the boundary from the bat of the diving Ben Stokes, trying desperately to make his ground – gifted the chasing England side an unexpected four runs and enabled them to tie the scores from the last ball of the match. The ‘Super Over’ contest that followed was also tied – a statistic to delight the cricket-stat enthusiasts everywhere (of which there are yet many) and England won on a technicality (most boundaries scored).

This is to take nothing at all away from the England side who have been trying to win the World Cup for as long as I have been following the game and have finally done it.

Well done! Congratulations all round. Let’s hope that this victory draws people back to the game.