Australia won the World Cup for a third successive time and congratulations to them. But we aren’t referring to that when we say ‘deserving end’. We refer to the unfortunate scenes at the end of the match when no one knew what was going on. The umpires were just short of telling Australia not to celebrate since technically they could have come back on Sunday to complete the remaining three overs while Australia was intent on celebrating a convincing win. In the end, though, it simply highlighted the ICCs two-faced nature. In short, the tournament got the shoddy end it deserved.

On the one side, the ICC wants cricket to improve by popularising it, they are also raking in more money than ever before but the paying public remains in the dark about how the game is run. Never mind how it’s run off the field, one would think that the ICC would not be so stuck in the old times that they would not even alter the playing conditions and rules. With just three overs left, it should have been the opposing captains’ or at least the match referee’s call to end the match. There was no way Sri Lanka was going to score 74 runs in 3 overs!

Once again, though, what will happen is most people would say that’s the past now and let’s look ahead, but things don’t change that easily with the ICC. Don’t be surprised if a similar scene is played out sometime in the future.

Moving to the cricket, there is much debate around at the moment about Australia’s dominance and whether it is good for the game. Of course not. No monopoly has ever benefited more than one entity. But in the case of Australia, it isn’t a monopoly. There is no rule that says another team cannot be as good as or better than Australia. There are eight potential teams who can be as good, but they don’t do the right things. It is not Australia’s fault that the other teams are so bad!

Sri Lanka would like to argue that they aren’t as bad, and it was one innings by Adam Gilchrist that took the game away from them. New Zealand would argue they aren’t as bad and it was just a good innings from Mahela Jayawardene that cost them. And the argument would continue until Ireland said they are not so bad, it was just six good teams that beat them! You get the point!

The 2007 World Cup may just be voted the worst of all till date. It was long, boring and never really got going. The flavour of the West Indies was missing and the ticket costs were prohibitive to ensure full stands – something that should be a given throughout the World Cup. A lot of work has to be done before 2011, but one thing that won’t happen is empty stands!