It was 1992. An unforgettable time in the world, especially for a young South African girl falling in love with cricket for the first time. Admittedly, it might have been Richard Snell who sparked her interest in cricket, but the love for the game didn’t end with him.
1992 was also the year the Cricket World Cup was held jointly in Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand were formidable, especially at home, and I am still not sure to this day how they didn’t win it, and Australia would go on to re-kindle their love-hate relationship with South African supporters by goading the national team for not being ready for international competition.
It’s 2015 and we are back in Australia and New Zealand and, noticeably, not much has changed. Australia are still trying to intimidate their opponents verbally on and off the pitch and New Zealand are looking every inch World Cup winners as they remain unbeaten thus far in this year’s edition of the sport’s showpiece event. However, this World Cup has become more important than any of its predecessors.
Watching AB de Villiers smash a staggering 162 not out off 66 balls against the West Indies, seeing Ireland pull off a remarkable win over the more fancied Windies, and experiencing the good cheer of earthquake-ravaged Christchurch hosting the opening ceremony makes it hard to remember that not long ago cricket was in diabolical disarray and in danger of being derailed completely.
It’s hardly been a year since the sport was rocked by its heaviest scandal since the Hansie Cronje match-fixing shame of 2000. After that ugly debacle the cricket world probably assumed the sport would never be dragged through such murky water again, but that’s exactly what happened when former Indian Premier League (IPL) supremo, Lalit Modi, and former New Zealand all-rounder, Chris Cairns, got into a legal stoush involving Modi’s indiscriminate tweeting of supposed corruption by Cairns during his involvement in the rival Indian Champions League (ICL) in 2008. Cairns successfully sued Modi for libel and defamation and the rest of us assumed that was case closed.
It wasn’t, however. Since then, a number of investigations have taken place with former New Zealand opening batsman, Lou Vincent, banned from cricket for match-fixing. Vincent then sent a thunderbolt through the cricket fraternity by fingering Cairns as the mastermind behind his foray into the underground world of match fixing and illegal betting. Cairns will now fight these charges in a UK court later this year and has since been sued by Modi who wants the verdict from their case to be overturned owing to the information brought forward by Vincent.
If the outrage owing to Vincent’s shocking revelations wasn’t bad enough, the sport was soon to be hit with a tragedy of another kind – the untimely and sad death of Australian batsman, Phil Hughes, during a local Sheffield Shield match where he was fatally hit on the head by a bouncer. Cricket’s already dark 2014 suddenly became even more volatile when it became embroiled in the ramifications of Hughes’ death where everything from the bouncer to on-field sledging came under the microscope.
It’s been mere months since Hughes’ death, and yet the Cricket World Cup has reignited the sport and put the spotlight firmly back where it belongs – on the game. And even though we are only in the group phases of the tournament, the excitement with which fans around the world have embraced the event is palpable. Yes, for those of us living far from Australia and New Zealand, logistically, it has been challenging getting to watch all the action, but it still hasn’t been enough of a deterrent as many people have appeared at work bleary-eyed and disorientated because they have been staying up and getting up to watch the cricket.
Instead of having the dark cloud of match fixing tainting the sport’s credibility or having to endure more of Piers Morgan’s campaigns to get Kevin Pietersen back into the England squad what we are now focused on is why England are imploding; how David Warner managed to find himself in hot water for actually complimenting Brendon McCullum ahead of their Eden Park showdown; whether South Africa can finally get rid of their ‘choker’ label; and the great spirit and camaraderie that has enveloped this particular World Cup.
Cricket has had enough turbulence and it’s time for all of us who love this game to step out into the sunshine and enjoy the view. For everything that has gone on in the last 12 months, the World Cup couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
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