Speaker by Various Artists

A forgettable world cup (or memorable for all the wrong reasons). Incompetent doesn't begin to describe it. Nice prose, Hamish.

If you enjoyed Hamish's post as much as I did, you might like to read Tim de Lisle's postmortem on cricinfo.

I see now everyone's sentimental favourites, the hard-done-by Sri Lankans, are stranded in London following Tamil air attacks back home.

Thanks to Russell and everyone for the world cup blog :)

Yeah thanks team - I've really enjoyed your write ups - pity there wasn't a better result for NZ, or a better world cup full stop. Or does shitty cricket get make for better writing?

Can I pimp my CWC roundup too? Ta.

Yes, well done you guys.

I've previously enjoyed the cricket world cup, so I think it's an entirely workable idea, but it really was a shocker this time around. Half-a-dozen interesting games, most of them involving Ireland. The only close, exciting matches that had any impact on anything other than statistics were Ireland knocking out Pakistan, and Bangladesh knocking out India. Neither of the semis, or the final came anywhere near being an exciting spectacle.

Bad atmosphere, no crowds, terrible viewing times for antipodean sorts, and a NZ flop after looking promising for the most part. Shane Bond and Styris did very well, I can't think of many other NZ players that got beyond 'OK', and a few were well below that. The less said about the last bit of the final the better.

The test match tournament is an excellent idea though. You could even put the two pools in different parts of the world - one pool in Australia, one in South Africa, then the finals could be in one of those two, or even in a third country.

Of course, the inability of the ICC to stage tournaments where there are two events going on simultaneously, would mean that a two pool round-robin between 10 teams, with semi-finals and a final would take some 90 days.

Or I dunno, we could have cricket on two channels at once, just as an idea.

Have you heard the latest? The death of the Pakistan Coach has been linked to militant Islamists!

Wed, 02 May 2007 07:30:18
02/05/2007 - “Cricket and the continuing shadow over the World Cup”
Alan Jones comments on Cricket and the continuing shadow over the World Cup.

Hey Kyle - at the 1996 World Cup they had two matches on at once all the time, and I remember sitting at a mate's flat with two (count 'em!) TVs showing two different matches. It got a bit confusing with the mute buttons and remotes and that, but we got the hang of it eventually.

Golden, golden memories, there.

Do you think they might scrap the current format? It hasn't exactly caught the imagination down here.

How about a 3-day tournament between the top four ICC ranked teams? 7 games in just over a fortnight including rest days, every one a potential contest.

I too just want to thank you guys for your blogging contributions during the Cup. It's a pity the comments threads were so sparsely attended, but whatever.

See you in '11!

Great posts - insightful analysis - good humour - well done.

As a member of the Old Thumpers, my respect for the OTP Chargers has increased immeasurably. Just a shame we can't get a team on the field for you to tear the heart out of our lottery-selected middle order.

Worst moment of the Black Caps' WC for me? McCullum's dismissal in the semi. Cometh the hour, faileth the man.

I was in Auckland last week for the semi and wasn't going to miss it for the world. None of my Auckland chums have Sky and the pubs were shut at midnight for Anzac Day so pal Jeremy and I rented a motel room.

The poor Korean woman running the joint was a little bemused by our request not to check the beds but to test the Sky Sports reception.

Sky themselves did nothing to help build up to the 2.30 start by scheduling 4-wheel-drive motorsport.

I wasn't that unhappy with the performance until McCullum's pathetic effort and I sympathised with Jeremy when he said "Can we actually do this?" while Franklin and Patel were hitting.

In the end there was always daylight between the top two and the rest and the fact we can beat Aus and Sri Lanka 3 times out of every 10 doesn't make us good enough to be finalists.

But I wouldn't have called us Black Craps, Hamish.

hear, hear to 3410's comments - well done to the bloggers.

imho, the tournament would have been a lot better if the same number of games had been played in a shorter time (i.e. 2 per day), and perhaps more importantly if someone had really challenged Australia. I think that it is far to say that the top 4 teams reached the semi's - in a number of sporting world cups that often hasn't been the case.

Yeah, thanks Guys, I've enjoyed the CWC updates (Richard Irvine love your work).

Still a bit bummed about the lost opportunity for NZ, but - (adopts appropriate stoicism) - could have been much worse. A tournament that is sure to become a stone cold byword for something, just not sure what.

Bring on the winter codes, eh?

This could have been a great event, but I'll claim a respectable tenth in the PA world cup. Although on reflection I'm kind of glad the super 14 started in february. Great writing all.