The ICC Tournament has always been meant to serve as a litmus test in between World Cup Tournaments: who's on the way up, who's slipping, audience enthusiasm, that kinda stuff.
So, as I observe a gorgeously televised shot of the sun setting in the backdrop to Sri Lanka's pile-driving innings, it quickly becomes obvious that South Africa shall be viewed as slipping before the evening is out. Further, I'm also observing a tournament ODI featuring a home-nation being played to a non sell-out crowd - and this is a day-nighter, and wasn't this the case in the recently concluded indifferently played ODI series in England? Clearly some things are up but any reader of this piece has probably known that for some time.
Reeling since the grueling WC2007 tournament (yes, a mere two seasons ago) the 50 over ODI format is surviving on fumes as I write, public attention now galvanized by the Twenty20 format and perhaps simply the intangible desire for something more revolutionary...
When your home nation has twirled off into the international twilight zone as mine (West Indies) has, you actually get back the thought allocation that's usually caught up in match tensions and aggravations, and you actually think about things as all else around you is now inconsequential: Was the administrative impasse a result of post-colonial immaturity, old fashioned greed or unbeknownst to us Windians, the beginning of something far more internationally significant?
Andy Flintoff gave me the answer with his grandly orchestrated departure from Test cricket due apparently to variable injuries as he attempts to commercially maximize the rest of his now limited playing career. His stance was firmly supported by the English Players Association. Now I ain't calling Andrew a gold-digger but he certainly has shown that he's no longer messing with no broke... (you get the drift).
It is now on and the stampede out of the Test door shall grow louder in the coming seasons.
The departure of numerous luminaries, all invariably citing similar circumstances, shall continue as the international Twenty20 league system begins to develop (yes, the IPL is the present centre but that shall not hold long-term), and the face of international cricket shifts to a global free agent-club base as against the present top down international forum that continues to force nations to meet and treat with players on what soccer aficionados would call club issues (e.g. intellectual property rights is a sticking point in the breakdown here - you heard me).
So, from my undistracted perch, the sun seems to be actually setting on various aspects of the game: in format and in structure...and quickly. That's an awful lot to consider and contemplate, so do wish me an early Windies ICC victory so that I can once again be consumed by the team's travails.
(Click here to know more about Jonathan)