Australia worthy winners of Cricket's appalling World Cup tournament (page 2 of 2)

They should have won that final but took their eyes of the ball at a vital moment and let the West Indies in. In 2005 there was more steel and determination, matched with talent, as England under Michael Vaughan's inspired leadership and Duncan Fletcher's canny coaching regained the Ashes in a summer to remember.

This win gave the team fame and fortune - three of them (Vaughan, Flintoff and Trescothick) bought million dollar homes on an exclusive Barbados golf course and they all, quite reasonably, cashed in on their success. That team has now fallen apart both literally and metaphorically. Injury and illness removed key players for some or all of the time. But the real failure was the absolute lack of a plan B when the going got tough. The contrast with the Australians is revealing.

They too lost players through retirement, loss of form or fitness but at all times there was the leadership of Ponting and the sometimes unfairly belittled coaching of John Buchanan to rely upon. This continuity, combined with belief in themselves and a ruthless determination to win led not just to the green and goldwash of a 5-0 Ashes win but the retention of the Cricket World Cup in brilliant fashion.

Whilst Australia was showing the way England descended into a slough of despond with players of true class like Strauss, Vaughan and Harmison failing comprehensively and with the iconic Andrew Flintoff totally losing the plot. Flintoff was an inept Captain in Australia and his personal performances there, and later in the World Cup as well, were nothing like those of a world-class all-rounder.

His behaviour off the field was hardly setting a good example either. But the feeble England leadership had no idea how to cope either with the fall into dysfunctionality of Flintoff and some others or with the loss of form of key players. England's World Cup performance was nervous, tactically naïve and utterly lacking in confidence.

When they scored 15 runs off ten overs (with fielding restrictions in place) at the beginning of their innings in the "must-win" match against South Africa it made one wonder whether anyone in the England camp had the foggiest idea how to play One Day cricket.

Overblown, over-hyped and over-sold

But of all the failures of this appalling 2007 Cricket World Cup it is the failure of the International Cricket Council (ICC) that stands out. The money wasted on new half-empty stadiums that nobody wanted to visit. The ticket prices that made the matches unaffordable for locals. And above all the ludicrous commercially driven seven-week schedule.

After the 2003 tournament commentators were unanimous that the competition had gone on for far too long and had included far too many matches. Here is what Wisden said at the time, " [The tournament] suffered profound structural and organisational faults. It was simply too big and too long." The 2003 event had lasted 43 days and included 54 matches but the ICC (as is their wont) ignored all the criticism and arranged for the 2007 World Cup to be even longer at 47 days (albeit with a slight reduction in matches to 51).

So ignore the opportunistic weasel words of ICC Chief executive Malcolm Speed who has just said about this year's tournament "We listen to criticism, and there has been a lot of it from people saying it's been too long, so we'll look to make it shorter." They didn't listen last time and, unless forced to, I doubt that they will this time either.

Cricket at the crossroads

World Cricket is at the crossroads. The commercial and sporting failure of the 2007 Cricket World Cup will concentrate the minds - not least in the financial powerhouse of the game in India. The Indian Board of Control will wonder why they need a tournament that gave them nothing and they will be unlikely to agree to a similar format again. The ICC will be forced to sit up and take notice - their otiose, aureate edifice is under real threat at last.