6.10pm

	Adam Gilchrist and the weather dashed Sri Lanka's chances in the World Cup final © Getty Images

The final minutes of the match descended into chaos and confusion and Australia were finally announced champions in near darkness, after having celebrated their victory a couple of overs earlier.

Though no one, including the ICC media manager who was present in the press box, knows yet what exactly happened in the middle, it appears that the umpires offered the Sri Lankan batsmen the light in the 33rd over, which they accepted, sparking off wild celebrations among the Australians. The stumps were broken too, signaling the end of play. But the umpires, who had stayed on in the middle, conferred and interrupted the victory huddle and soon it became apparent that the play had not been called off.

Soon, the Sri Lankan batsmen emerged from the dressing-room and play resumed even thought the light faded further. It took a couple of nondescript overs for the Australians to finally seal victory and though they were deserving winners, there was an anti-climatic feel to the end. The Australians had been robbed off a feeling of spontaneity. But it was that sort of a World Cup.

6 pm - McGrath strikes

He has done it. It wasn’t off the last ball, and he might have an over left if Ponting decides to give him an eighth. It’s almost twilight now, cameras are flashing in the stands and the Aussies are singing Land Down Under in unison.

5.50 pm - Watch out for McGrath's last burst

The cup is all but Australia’s now and next over could be McGrath’s last in international cricket. He hasn’t taken a wicket so far, but he ended his Test career with a wicket and nothing should be ruled out.

5.40 pm - Light fades on Sri Lanka's run chase

A cool evening breeze is wafting across the ground and Chamara Silva has just crafted two fours off Bracken, but bulbs have already come on in the 3Ws stand, and the light is receding fast. Shaun Tait is rifling them in from the Joel Garner end, and there is no telling how long this can last. The Sri Lankans would not be appealing for bad light for sure.

5.25 pm - Gloomy skies worsen Sri Lanka's position

The rain’s gone, and the players are back on the field, but the overs have been slashed and the target revised. Sri Lanka, who needed about 10 per over before going off now need an almost hopeless 12. Aussie front-benchers are on their feet now, and the sound of drums has receded. Sri Lanka were behind already, and their supporters must now reflect on the injustice of nature: did the Australians need any additional assistance? Mahela Jayawardene has just been trapped lbw and Sri Lankan hopes are receding by the ball.

5.00 pm - It looks bleak for Sri Lanka

Alas, it is beginning to drizzle though it’s not heavy but persistent. Sri Lanka are way behind in the D/L calculations and it will be a tragedy if the match were to end that way. The last World Cup knock-out match between these two teams, in the semi-final in 2003, was decided by D/L, with Sri Lanka way behind the target. There is an hour left before the scheduled close of the play which can be extended by an half an hour. It all looks bleak at the moment. The umpires are staying on and saw-dust has been poured near the crease but the pitch is getting wet and the decision will have to be taken soon.

4.15 pm - Sangakkara mesmerises and gives hope to Lanka

In a day full of thrilling stroke-play, three of the most gorgeous were executed by Sangakkara, off successive balls, off that old miser Glenn McGrath. The first was a ballet-like shimmy down the wicket, a melodious executing of the lofted drive, not brutal, but a stroke played with a rhythmic flow; the next was outside off, and carved, between cover and extra cover with timing and precision; McGrath followed up with a short ball, and Sangakarra swivelled and pulled it swiftly behind midwicket. Between Gilchrist and Sangakkara, we have seen the full range already. Gilchrist, all bat-speed and power, Sangakkara all grace and wrist.The chant – Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka – is beginning to get deafening now.

4.00 pm - Fumbling Aussies

Are the Australian fielders feeling the nerves of the big stage? Not even half-way into the Sri Lankan chase and there have been four blips on the field. Two in Shaun Tait’s third over – first Brad Hogg failed to back up to a throw from Michael Clarke and conceded a overthrow and off the next ball, Shane Watson dropped Sangakkara's mistimed uppercut at third man. It was Hogg again, who fired in throw wide off McGrath at the bowler’s end and Sangakkara desperately short of the crease, and Michael Clarke let a ball slip through his hands at point to allow a single. The world champions crumbling? Hardly.

3.40 pm - Mixed sounds from the crowd

	Sri Lankan fans use drums and conches to cheer their side while Australian ones use their hands and mouths © AFP

Different sounds are beginning to be heard around the stands now. The Australian fans are using their hands and their mouths. There is a rhythmic build-up to every ball as the fans cheer with synchronised clapping and whistling. And they can be easily spotted with their yellow jerseys, or as a group in the southern part of the east stand without any. The ROW supporters are sprinkled all over, and they emanate various sounds. Sri Lanka's fours are greeted with thumping of drums from one part of the ground, blow of conches from another, and a loud roar of cheer from all over. The first Australian misfield was hailed by a triumphantly approving noise, only to be bettered next ball when Kumar Sangakkarra was dropped by Shane Watson at the third-man boundary. The sun is out in full glory as Glenn McGrath starts his spell from the Malcolm Marshall end.

3.20 pm - Tait's amazing run-up

The sun’s hiding again, and Nathan Bracken starts with a cool breeze blowing across. Upul Tharanga flashes the first ball over cover for four. The ground has been almost full today, but the empty seats are in the 3W's stand. They belong to the sponsors of this mega-tournament. Most of them Indian corporates, and many of them have decided to cut their loss. Shaun Tait serves up a crunching bouncer to Tharanga. It’s amazing how he generates such pace off a languid, almost halting run-up. The over ends with a loud but futile leg-before appeal.

3.00 pm - Give it up for the World Cup volunteers

	Sri Lanka were undone by Australia's power-hitting and looked hapless on the field © Getty Images

World Cup volunteers, who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes, some of them abhorring the regulations that have squeezed the fun out of the World Cup, are on a parade around the ground now. And movingly, they are getting a standing ovation from the spectators. Despite the officiousness of it all, the World Cup has been an incident-free event, and the volunteers have played huge part in it. The innings break is over almost as soon as it started.

2.57 pm - Hapless Lanka

An absolute shocker that sums up Sri Lanka's performance on the field. Fernando, who has already bowled a no-ball and a wide in the final over of the innings, manages to fire one in at Michael Clarke's feet. Clarke barely manages to squeeze it out, and the ball loops back to Fernando off the ground. Andrew Symonds, meanwhile, has charged down the wicket and Fernando merely has to roll the ball back to the stumps to run him out. But he fumbles, trips and misses the stumps. The ball rolls down to mid off and the batsmen squeeze out a single. Sri Lanka have been run ragged by an awesome display of power-hitting.

2.50 pm - 300 in 38 overs?

A wicket at last for Lasith Malinga, and the first big roar goes up from the ROW (Rest of the World) fans. The ball was full and swinging and Watson went to sweep, Australia have promoted big-shot men ahead and Michael Hussey must be wondering what it might take for him to get a hit. Australia are unlikely to get to 300 now. But who knows?

	No stopping Gili at Barbados © Getty Images

2.10pm - Whose side are you on?

Australia vs The World, one banner in the East Stand reads. Which of course sums up the sentiments at the ground today. The Barmy Army are there, and it’s not hard to guess who they are supporting. I sat next to a Barbadian lady in the bus in the morning. Who was she backing, I asked? I needn’t have. She pointed to her T-shirt. It was Sri Lankan. “No more Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi”, she said. The Aussies have been at it since the match began. For the most, they have only gasps: a bump ball caught at cover, a high ball falling between the fielders, a mis-hit from Hayden, a couple of muffled appeals from Murali.... at this rate, Australia could keep in tact their record of scoring 300 every time they have batted first: 84 from nine overs. Eminently possible.

1.40pm - Gilchrist hurts Sri Lanka
Gilchrist brings up his first hundred in a World Cup final by lifting Malinga over his head for four. It is the fastest hundred in a World Cup final. He has been breathtakingly brutal, smoking fours and sixes almost at will. Hayden has joined the party too, hoisting Malinga for a straight six. They have now become the second most prolific opening pair in one-day cricket, beating Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, who have a stand named after them. Only Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly stand ahead of them, but this pair has delivered when it has mattered the most. In the last World Cup final, they put up 105 from 15 overs.

1.20pm - One almighty blast
The shot of the day, so far. The previous ball, Gilchrist has just blasted Fernando, who is back in firing line after Tillakaratne Dilshan was hit for two straight sixes, for a six over long off. Fernando keeps this one full, almost a yorker on leg stump, but Gilchrist’s bat has enough momentum to squeeze is past the bowler. It screams down to the boundary. Gilchrist’s brilliance is hustling Sri Lanka in to sloppiness. Wides and misfields are beginning to creep in. Hayden looks like he's batting on another planet, still edging.

1.05pm - Fernando's fatal drop?
Has Sri Lanka’s chance come and gone? Dilhara Fernando, who has been bowling round the wicket from the first ball after having been warned twice for transgressing in to the business area of the pitch in the semi-final against New Zealand, drops a caught and bowled chance from Gilchrist. It was hit firmly, but should have been taken. Gilchrist responds by hitting his next three balls for 4, 4, and 6. Fernando has now gone for 29 from three overs. Gilchrist has taken 23 off 13 balls. A couple of overs later, he brings up his third successive half-century in World Cup finals. Sri Lanka have spin from both ends now. Murali's doesn't like bowling to left handers. His third ball to Gilchrist was a doosra, and a wide.

	Adam Gilchrist might have had an average tournament but arrived on the big stage © Getty Images

12.50pm - Malinga 1 Hayden 0
Even bullies don’t like it hot. Matthew Hayden, who has spanked three hundreds in the tournament so far, has been kept honest by Lasith Malinga, who is one of the true wonders of cricket. He hasn’t gone full pelt so far, hitting only the mid-80s, but has been fast enough to keep Hayden pinned to his crease. From 15 balls from Malinga, Hayden has managed merely a single. Malinga’s first spell reads: 4-1-6-0.

12.25pm - Gilchrist sets the tone
Adam Gilchrist, who hasn’t set this World Cup afire, begins the offensive with a four and six in Vaas’s second over. The six is a typical Gilchrist effort: pick the length early, meet the ball on the up and hoist over long-on. It’s caught by an Australian fan in the front rows and he holds the ball up triumphantly. Cue for Kumar Sangakarra to move up to the stumps. It’s only the eighth ball in Vaas’s spell.

12:15pm - Match on
The match is on. Chaminda Vaas’s first ball is greeted with a cacophonous roar. He is on target. Aussie fans rise to their feet as Adam Gilchrist opens the scoring with single. So who will the shorter match suit more? Viv Richards, still majestic, still fit, and still magnetic, was around a while ago. What do you think will happen, he asked, before volunteering the answer: Australians might lose a few early wickets.

	Patience is a virtue © Getty Images

11.45am - An appropriate end?
Good news. The rain has stopped, the sun is beginning to break through and the covers are coming off. Andy Atkinson, ICC’s pitch consultant is out there in the middle supervising the operation and the Sri Lankans are out warming up. It is clear now that the final will be a truncated affair. But while we await an announcement, here’s a thought: is it perhaps not an appropriate end to a unfulfilling World Cup?

11.30am - Forget the match, what about the flights?
The rain is beginning to get worrying. It’s a stiff, constant stream now. There isn’t a trace of blue in the sky now, and a haze is developing around the ground. The wind from the south-east, which had been blowing the clouds away, has ceased. There is a stifling stillness around now.

The giant screen is playing highlights and a band is playing. But spectators are beginning to get restless. Those without umbrellas on the front rows are beginning to filter out and journalist have started speculating how many overs we might lose today. Some are getting worried about their flights if the match gets carried over to tomorrow.

	Andrew Miller sits alongside Angus Fraser in the media centre © Cricinfo Ltd

10.30am - Hitting the roof
The new media box at the Kensington Oval is among best in the world. It has all the facilities and a great view. And it’s open. But there has been a major problem. When the sun starts get a bit benevolent towards the afternoon. At about 3pm, laptops start burning, at 4pm, they melt.

Many journalists have been seen retreating to airconditioned confines of the media centre and couple of levels below. But there is another problem with that. You have watch the match on TV there. It’s the same as staying back in Mumbai, London or wherever.

The organisers have come up with a novel solution. They have erected, makeshift roofs over our head. Actually, roof is stretching it. It’s a thin piece of wood mounted on a shaky frame. It’s painted green. And it’s low to ensure it doesn’t block the view of chaps sitting in the row behind. It has already served a purpose today by protecting the laptops from the drizzle.

But thank god Joel Garner hasn’t taken to cricket reporting. Our very own Andrew Miller already has a bump on his head. That’s him in the hat in the photograph. Crouching next to him is the former England medium-pacer Angus Fraser, who is the chief cricket correspondent for the London based Independent.

	Australia batting but is that bad for Sri Lanka? © Getty Images

10.05am - Good toss to lose?
Australia have chosen to bat. That’s been their gameplan through the World Cup and they have the confidence to stick to it. The sun came out briefly. Now it’s gone behind again. In fact, it has begun to drizzle again. The covers are coming on. It’s a good toss to lose for Sri Lanka. The conditions in the morning will suit them.

The track they are using today is different from on the one West Indies played England. That was a belter. The rain has got heavier. It is no longer a drizzle. Did the toss come a few minutes too early for Australia?

10am - Unorthodoxy and mystery
It already feels like a final. It’s the one everyone wanted. Australia haven’t look like losing. Why, they haven’t looked like losing more than six wickets. But there is an air of expectation in the air. If any team can beat them it’s Sri Lanka. They have one thing that none of Australia’s opponents have had so far. They have unorthodoxy and mystery.

As South Africa demonstrated so abysmally, you can’t beat Australia at their own game. Sri Lanka will try to distract them. They have the skills and a joie de vivre the other teams have lacked. Only they can redeem this wretched World Cup.

	A rainy start to proceedings © Getty Images

The roads leading the Kensington Oval are choked. Bands are already playing. Fans are there from everywhere. Some have even come from the other parts of the Caribbean. A Hindi song is playing a local bar and two locals are dancing. I am puzzled. My colleague Rahul Bhattacharya,
who has spent in year in Guyana clears it for me: it is a Guyanese scene, he says. Bars are already open. And beer’s already flowing.

Yellow and green is everywhere. A large posse of Australian fans have just alighted from a cruise liner. The West Stand, the temporary one which will demolished after the World Cup, is sea of Australian colours. A huge roar goes up when it is announced that Ricky Ponting has won the toss. The Sri Lankan fans are hopelessly outnumbered. But needn’t worry.

Everyone else in the ground are backing them. They are the home team today.

9:40am - Hot and sticky
Woke up to a drizzle today. It would have been unimaginable last week when the sky matched the colour of the water and the sun shone as brightly as it does in the Australian summer in Melbourne. Today, it felt like London. But it rained here last morning too. Locals say it will not last. And it will get hot. It’s sticky already.

But will it affect the decision at toss? The Australians like to bat first. And they have scored more that 300 every time they have batted first in the World Cup. But the conditions are heavy and both teams have a left-arm swing bowler with the new ball. The pitch here was thought not conducive for Chaminda Vaas. But it might be different now.

	Collie Smith (right) along with West Indies left-arm spinner Alf Valentine © Locksley Comrie

O'Neil Gordon Smith, Collie to those that knew and loved him, has been dead nearly 50 years yet you wouldn't know it if you listened to Locksley Comrie talk about him. Comrie moved to one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Jamaica when he was six years old, though back then Trenchtown wasn't the byword for gang violence that it has become today. He grew up idolising Collie, and like his idol, he was head boy at the school in Boys' Town. In later years, he headed Jamaica's football association, and was also president of his neighbourhood club, the same institution that once boasted of players like Collie and Sir Frank Worrell.

Comrie doesn't go back to the area as much as he'd like these days. When he does, it's often for the wrong reasons. "A lot of my old friends have been killed in the area," he tells you. "Earlier today, I was watching a football game on TV, and you could see a helicopter circling overhead. There's a fear of violence, and that violence is a fact of life in Trenchtown now. Growing up, it was never like that. Boys’ Town was one of the most successful institutions in the Caribbean, and dare I say it, the most unique in the world."

Father Hugh Sherlock, who founded the club, died in 1998, and part of the neighbourhood's soul went with him. For cricket aficionados, it's enough to know that Boys’ Town was Worrell's last club. After Collie's tragic death in a car crash in England in 1959, Worrell, a Barbados native who had moved to Jamaica, came to Boys’ Town to play as a way of honouring the memory of his departed colleague. Boys’ Town won the Cup for the first time in 1960, and Comrie says with a grin: "It was also because we started getting a fair deal from the umpires."

Comrie's own cricket career ended when he went to England to study in the early 1960s, but he put off his departure by a year just so that he could play alongside Worrell. "You just played beyond yourself," he tells you. "When he first promoted me from the senior side, I didn't really want it because I would have been captain of the junior team. And in the first five games, I didn't get to bat or bowl because we were so strong.

The first time I batted was at No.10. Sir Frank gave me his bat and gloves. I felt such an energy then that I could have batted for 10 days

"The first time I batted was at No.10. Sir Frank gave me his bat and gloves. I felt such an energy then that I could have batted for 10 days. I made the second-highest score and we won the game. The next match we played, he gave me his pads. Whenever I'd look at the pavilion, he'd be watching. It gave you strength. He was the first to stand up and cheer if you played a good shot. You couldn't get out. It was his last match before leaving for Australia, and he let me keep his bat."

What was it like playing alongside someone who was so much more than just a cricketer? "I sometimes want to think it was a dream," says Comrie, "to play with him, to sit beside him. He was a remarkable human being."

As special as Worrell was, it's Collie that has been the abiding obsession. [Read Siddhartha Vaidyanathan's Never Another Like Collie] "He was the living embodiment of Christ," he tells you, though a Muslim himself. I look away embarrassed as I see the glint of a tear in his eye. "He was very humble, and yet attracted attention wherever he
went. He reached out to people. Right from the time I first watched him, I used to keep a scrapbook. And each time Collie came back from tours, he'd bring me clippings."

He shows me some, from a huge file that he has carried with him. Some of the clippings are yellow with age, and you're half afraid to even touch them. Some of the articles deal with Trenchtown and its problems, but the rest are all about Collie and what West Indies cricket lost forever when a car driven by Sir Garfield Sobers crashed in Staffordshire in 1959.

	The Boys' Town junior and senior sides. Sir Frank Worrell (sitting middle, Senior Cup) came to play for Boys' Town after Collie Smith died in 1959 © Locksley Comrie

It dismays Comrie that "Ninety per cent of Jamaicans no longer know about him". "The road named after him, Collie Smith Drive, is known for its shooting and fighting and death. It leads straight to a cemetery. What happens on that road has no connection whatsoever to the man he was."

The same Trenchtown that gave the world Collie Smith, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and many others is now a no-go zone. "Bob Marley wrote five songs about Trenchtown," Comrie tells you with a smile. "He just put music to the way people talked there. When he sang: Then we would cook cornmeal porridge, Of which I'll share with you; My feet is my only carriage, So
I've got to push on through, he was talking about our lives.

"And there was Jimmy Tucker [the tenor]. Listening to him was like going to the Metropolitan opera. He was singing in languages he didn't even know. Even now, when I listen to him, I can close my eyes and picture Trenchtown as it was 50 years ago."

It was a different world then.

	Joseph 'Reds' Perriera © Cricinfo

In this age of high-speed internet, teleconferences and live streaming, it's not that difficult to put a face to words. There are rarely any 'faceless' voices. Yet, when some of us were growing up and being indoctrinated into the faith of our fathers, voices were all we had to follow the cricket in faraway lands like the West Indies and Australia.

The ABC's Jim Maxwell was always distinctive, the harbinger of cheery Ashes news after the nightmares of the mid-1980s, and there was hardly a cricket fan around who didn't recognise the smooth tone and Caribbean lilt that has been Tony Cozier's stock-in-trade for half a century.

All those years ago, the man who played Rae to his Stollmeyer was Joseph 'Reds' Perriera, a Guyanese who now lives in St Lucia. Reds watched his first Test matches against India in 1953, and remembers the visitors being "a very good fielding side". "[Chandrasekhar] Gadkari was outstanding, and there was also the batting of [Vijay] Hazare and ML Apte."

The Indian connection doesn't end there. Nearly two decades later, he went on air for the first time when Ajit Wadekar's side triumphed against the odds in 1971. "I watched [Sir Len] Hutton, you know, and I can tell you that Sunny [Gavaskar] was in that class as a batsman. [Dilip] Sardesai had an excellent tour as well."

We chat under an unrelenting sun in the press box at the Kensington Oval, a place filled with memories for someone whose association with West Indies cricket goes back to the days of the three Ws, who have the main stand named after them. "I was lucky to watch a little of them," says Reds. "[Frank] Worrell was all finesse and elegance, and he had an extra string to his bow with his medium-pace bowling. He was also by far our most astute captain, a magnificent leader of men.

"[Everton] Weekes was light on his feet and he hit the ball hard. [Clyde] Walcott could really send the ball a long way and he played some shots off the back foot that you rarely see anymore. In a lot of ways, Weekes and Walcott intimidated teams like [Viv] Richards would in later years."

Was Richards the best then? He smiles. "It's hard to say. They were all such fine players. You could argue that Garry Sobers, even without his four types of bowling, was the best of them all, as a batsman alone. Mind you, [Rohan] Kanhai was pretty close. It doesn't help that the numbers don't stack up with him. He got out in the 90s a lot.

"But Kanhai could pick the ball out of the spinner's hand. Sobers picked it off the pitch. Both he and Richards had phenomenal eyesight, and when it started to go, they struggled more than those with better techniques."

Apart from Gavaskar, Reds rates Greg Chappell ['such a beautiful player to watch'] and Martin Crowe ['again, very easy on the eye'] as the finest visiting batsmen he's seen. "[Geoffrey] Boycott was too slow, and didn't have the range of shots that Sunny did."

As we talk, Daren Powell is putting together a superb spell of accurate and hostile seam bowling. For Reds, it brings back more than the odd snapshot from the past. "They were all such great bowlers," he says, "and yet each so different. [Joel] Garner and [Colin] Croft were exceptional with the old ball, [Michael] Holding was quick and straight, and [Andy] Roberts was a great thinker. [Malcolm] Marshall couldn't even establish
himself in the side till Croft went to South Africa."

What about those two, I ask, pointing to the Hall and Griffith stand. Again, he smiles. "My father paid for me to cross over on a boat to Trinidad in 1956 so that I could watch the selection trials," he says. "I watched Hall for the first time then. He was quick, but all over the place. As for Griffith, there'll always be a cloud over his career because of the allegations that he bent his arm. But for sheer pace, I think Roy Gilchrist was right up there."

Reds, who covered the 1975 World Cup final with Cozier - 'It was such a different game then,' he says with a laugh - did the last of his 145 Tests two years ago in Trinidad. 'They've done most things right today," he says wistfully, staring down at the field. "It's such a pity that it's too late to be of any use.

"When I look back, I'm glad that I was born when I was, fortunate to watch the players that I did." The most vivid memory? Late on the fourth evening at the Adelaide Oval on Australia Day, 14 years ago. "I still remember Craig McDermott turning one off his pads late on. Desmond Haynes got down just in time at forward square leg. He got a hand to it, stopped it. If not." West Indies won by a run, and then went to Perth where they annihilated the Australians in seven sessions to clinch the series 2-1.

"These players care more about their contracts and what they can get out of the game," he says sadly. "They're not bothered about what they put in."

Reds certainly put in, and thousands of us still recall his eloquence with great fondness. For the sake of men like him, you can only hope that West Indies cricket turns a corner, and sooner rather than later.

	Poster of a Blue Waters film 'Hit for a six' © Cricinfo

Last night, I achieved the dubious distinction of walking the red carpet at the international premiere of a feature film in Bermuda shorts, a situation I tried to explain as an attempt to achieve parity with the superior sex by showing a bit of skin. There was no rush of cameras, though, and I slunk off to the far corner to nurse my pineapple juice.

Truth be told, I made a fool of myself. It is no excuse that I thought it was a media-only preview. I didn’t read the invite.

And let me get a bit real too. It was the premiere of a feature film alright, though the ‘international’ part is overstating a bit. The occasion, though, was special: the premiere of Barbados’s first full-length feature film. And it was hardly a surprise that it was on cricket and titled Hit for Six!

The Barbados film industry is only four years old and it had, till last night, to its credit three feature films, all of which were shot in video format on budgets of less than US $500,000. The country has only two proper theatres and the premiere was being held at Olympus Theatre, the country’s sole multiplex with six screens.

Hit for Six was thus a breakthrough for it was filmed on celluloid and cost US $770,000. Written, directed and produced by Alison Saunders-Franklyn, a Barbadian/Trinidadian who has acquired a reputation in corporate and television programming, the film assembled local talents from stage and amateurs.

It held promise because films made with passion, creative honesty and hunger can be extremely rewarding. A few years ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I went to watch the then unknown City of God, a Brazilian film made with little-known actors, and came back spellbound. It went on become a cult film and win an Oscar.

The movie started about 20 minutes behind schedule after we had been entertained by an advertisement for a local cricket fest that played in a loop. A friend accompanying me reckoned it might have played 56 times. Apparently, the wait was for the main actor, Andrew Pilgrim, considered the country’s leading stage actor. Pilgrim was said to have
practiced cricket for three months in preparing for the role of Alex Nelson, a talented but, out-of-favour batsman fighting to regain his place and honour.

The film never went beyond amateurish. It had the feel of a home video, the lead actor looked too old for even a middle-aged cricketer, the plot was too simplistic and full of clichés. It picked up a bit towards the middle when the relationship between Nelson and his father, a former Test player whose career had ended in controversy, and who had, for large part of his life, hadn’t acknowledged Nelson as his son, started to develop. But it wound up towards a predictable end. Honest intentions are not always enough.

'With a bat in hand, the Flying Fish, the national symbol of Barbados welcomes the visitor from every lamppost' © Cricinfo

A flashing glimpse of aqua blue waters from the plane was enough to horrify me about my near folly. West Indies has tugged at my heartstrings ever since I became a cricket fan; England is cricket's place of birth and India is now its financial capital, but for me West Indies remains the game's spiritual home. Despite the misery of the national team, it conjures up of images of cricket played for the right reasons: for enjoyment. I had never been here before, and it's a moment I had waited for all my life.

Yet I very nearly didn't come. Numbed by death, turned off by the lack of atmosphere and spirit and discouraged by the quality of cricket, I contemplated saving my West Indian tryst for a worthier occasion. And two postponements later, I boarded the flight still wondering if it was worth the effort.

A stop-over in London didn't help. The World Cup is almost a non-event there even though England could still make it to final. I had to wade through 19 pages of the sports section of a Sunday broadsheet ... football of all kinds, FA Cup, Barclays Premiership, Champions League, Coca-Cola Championship, rugby union, horse racing, motor racing ... before encountering the first mention of cricket. In tabloids, it was merely a footnote, and the only question the gentleman at the Heathrow immigration asked me was if I was going find out who killed Bob Woolmer.

But touching down on Barbados meant connecting with cricket once again. The airport is a sprawling and single-storey building with an air of informal distinctiveness about it. It has a canopy-like roof, and the sunlight streams through translucent fibre sheets. From the roof hangs huge vertical hoardings of Brian Lara promoting bmobile, the cellular service of Cable & Wireless, one of the sponsors of the World Cup, and in the arrival lounge two huge hoardings make you instantly aware of the cricketing heritage of Barbados. One features Worrell, Walcott, Weekes and Sobers, the other Greenidge, Haynes, Marshall and Garner. That Hall and Griffith don't find a space is a clear sign of being spoilt by the riches. Later in the evening, I would spot David Murray, rated by many the best wicketkeeper West Indies ever produced, but now a drinking wreck, on a bar stool at the St Lawrence Gap, a busy, bustling street lined with bars and restaurants which turns in to one big party after sundown.

Barbados loves cricket lovers, one message reads © Cricinfo

Spread over 166 square miles, about the same as Mumbai but with a population of 264,000 as opposed to Mumbai's 18 million, Barbados is among the smaller nations in the Caribbean, but easily the most prosperous. The British influence is evident in the architecture of the buildings around the city centre, but mostly it is lined with asbestos-roofed single-single storey houses spread along the coasts. Strangers smile at you and give you the thumbs up on the streets, cabbies chat away like long-lost friends, and street-side bars and pubs resonate with Reggae and Calypso.

You can feel cricket everywhere. There are roundabouts named after cricketers, there is a university ground named after the 3Ws. It's a picturesque ground where some warm-up matches were played. And the country is dressed up for the World Cup. With a bat in hand, the Flying Fish, the national symbol of Barbados and remarkable specimen that can glide through the air up to 100 yards at 30 km per hour, welcomes the visitor from every lamp post. Barbados loves cricket lovers, one message reads, A big Bajan welcome to all, reads another. Cricket is on the radio in cars, on television in restaurants, and visitors are everywhere, wearing their national colours, drinking, milling and making merry. Irish fans are everywhere, but so are Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Indians.

It's almost evening by the time I get to the ground. The accreditation centre has just closed. So I can't get in to ground. But I hang around to soak in the atmosphere. Ireland have just beaten Bangladesh. Burgers and hot dogs are selling briskly and a local band is playing on a podium nearby. A young couple join in for an impromptu dance and are cheered lustily.

I bump into a group of Indian fans coming out of Kensington Oval. This was the match they had booked their journey for. It was meant to be India v Pakistan. They are still wearing the Indian team shirt. It's like wearing their hurt. They are from London. It has cost them a fortune to spend a month in the West Indies. "Tell the Indian cricket team this," one of them tells me, "we don't trust them any more. The next time, we will wait before we book our tickets." They are not alone.

But they trot off to the jetty to catch a boat to Grenada where Sri Lanka play Australia. They are not giving up on cricket yet. That's the way it should be.

	Emmerson Trotman in his pomp © Getty Images

A Friday night in Barbados, and most people you talk to ask you to head to Oistins. The seafood stalls there are something of an island institution and you realise that as soon as you get there, with a throng of people waiting for their plates. I settle for the grilled dolphin, and we’re joined at the dinner table by someone who might have been playing in this World Cup had things gone his way.

Gulam Bodi was born in India, but has played all his cricket in South Africa. Most hadn’t heard of him until Kevin Pietersen teed off against the selection policies that forced him out of KwaZulu-Natal, and few would be aware that Bodi too has left Durban, to play for the powerful Titans franchise at Centurion. A left-hand batsman who also bowls a decent chinaman, Bodi is in Barbados just to watch the final stages and cheer his compatriots on. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, he remains confident that South Africa can beat Australia and make the final.

Large fish steaks washed down with the local Banks, we head to De Oval Cricket Entertainment Village for Reggae Explosion. It’s 70 Barbadian dollars to get in and we’re more than a little disappointed at the some of the music, which is definitely closer to the hip-hop genre than anything that Bob Marley or Peter Tosh might have come up with.

As Baby Cham, Lust and Sanchez entertain a slowly building crowd, Craig Marais – who works for the South African Broadcasting Corporation – and I decide to have a look around. That’s when we bump into a fairly short and stocky man, dressed in loose white shirt and colourful orange trousers. Emmerson Trotman is nursing a beer and swaying to the tune being belted out from the stage. Craig, who played first-class cricket in South Africa, knows him well, having been coached by him in Cape Town.

Nearly a quarter-century on, the rebel tour to South Africaremains a hugely controversial subject in these islands. Trotman was one of those in a squad captained by Lawrence ‘Yagga’ Rowe, an opening batsman and wicketkeeper who could also bowl a bit. He has lived the last 31 years in the Netherlands, and spent most winters coaching in South Africa. Mark Boucher was “one of my East London boys,” he tells you with real pride.

Predictably though, much of the conversation centres around the rebels and how good they were. Franklyn Stephenson was an allrounder of genuine quality, as was Collis King, and though Rowe was past his best, the team still had Alvin Kallicharran. Many of the players were ostracised on their return to the islands, and several went on to make a living from coaching in South Africa.

Trotman went on to coach the Netherlands for eight years until 2004, leading them to a ICC Trophy, but he’s at his most voluble when talking about the coaching work done by the likes of Malcolm Marshall [at Natal],Eldine Baptiste and Stephenson. “I wonder how much West Indies cricket lost out with you guys helping increase the standard of the game in South Africa,” says Craig, and Trotman nods slowly.

He will apply for the job of coaching West Indies, but has little hope of getting it. It remains one of sport’s great paradoxes that a region that has given cricket so many of its all-time greats has seldom felt compelled to use their expertise to further the game in the Caribbean.

Later, as we move on to an open-air bar in the St Lawrence Gap, Trotman points to a corner stool right next to the bar. “He comes and sits there all the time,” he says, talking about David Murray. Craig says that there are many in South Africa who think Murray was the best wicketkeeper that they ever watched, even better than Ray Jennings who also played in the matches against the West Indian rebels. These days, he’s an empty shell of a man, a cautionary tale of drug and alcohol abuse, but those that knew him when the future was bright still wonder what might have been.

As for Trotman, he’s only in Barbados for a three-week holiday, a time to catch up with the family and friends that he left behind half a life ago. “Did the re bel tour affect the way people looked at him in Barbados?” He smiles, shakes his head, and says, “No man.” “But you never came back here, did you?” A shadow of sadness flashes across his face before he answers. “No, man. I never did.”

	The Marshall Rapids in Guyana mark the start of the Amazonian basin of South America © Dileep Premachandran

Ted Sabat felt the bug first in the jungles of Malaya. A soldier in the British army, he went there four decades ago. A few years later, in 1971, he came to Guyana. "The forests looked so much the same," he says, "though Malaya was more hilly." Having caught Jungle Fever - not the kind that afflicted the protagonists in Spike Lee's brilliant movie about interracial relations - Ted, a Londoner, came back in 1981. He's rarely been away since.

For much of the year, you can find him either in Georgetown or at his camp near the Marshall Rapids, the falls that mark the start of the Amazonian basin. It is well off the beaten track, and getting there involves a long boat ride and a half-hour trek through the rainforest where you can see jaguar paw-marks among other things.

We start from Georgetown early in the morning, guided by Niranjan Pradeep - "Call me Chico" - who's been on this particular beat for 19 years. After a short trip by bus and a speed-boat ride on the massive Essequibo - the third largest river in South America - we stop for breakfast at Shanklands. "Eat well, the jaguars will be hungry," Chico says, not making everyone laugh. Fortified by cups of coffee and tea, we set off across the water to Bartica, a small town sustained by miners who go off for long periods into the interior.

You can see several of them, propped wearily on bar-stools sipping on their Banks, while the shopping mall across the way is empty except for the few of us who go in to get a drink. The proprietress of a souvenir shop tells us that the town's gearing up for the big Easter Sunday
regatta, an event that draws spectators from all over Guyana.

From Bartica, we go to Baganara House, a little island on the river that's also a resort. The lemonade is so good that everyone has two glasses, and the lunch isn't half bad either. There's a little strip of beach too, and the water's pleasant enough for a quick swim. The sky above is overcast and little drops of rain fall as we head for the jungle dock from where we'll journey to the falls.

Along the way, you can see Eddie Grant's residence on one of the little mid-river islands. Born in Guyana, Grant became famous with hits such as Baby, Come Back and Electric Avenue, though he's perhaps destined to be remembered most for the anti-Apartheid classic, Gimme Hope, Jo'anna, released just two years before the evil empire finally fell.

	The house of Eddie Grant, famous for his anti-apartheid anthem "Gimme hope, Jo'anna" © Dileep Premachandran

The likes of Mick Jagger, sometimes seen up in the stands at Georgetown's Bourda Oval, have stayed here, and Chico seems especially proud of the Plaisance-boy-done-good. Workmen are sprucing up the place as we whiz past in the boat, and we're informed that there are many small strips in the interior for Grant to land a private plane if he so wishes.

The last part of the journey is the most spectacular. After anchoring the boat on the periphery of the forest, we walk to Ted's camp. A guide, shirtless like Ted but carrying a machete, accompanies us to the rapids, talking about the two big cats that often come calling and the snakes and other wildlife. With the ground underfoot so squelchy, I'm more worried about leeches.

It's a half-hour walk through uneven terrain, and the falls themselves, when we glimpse them, aren't as awe-inspiring as the Kaieteur, which is five times as high as the Niagara. What you can do at the Marshall Rapids however is get the best water massage you ever will. If you're prepared to clamber across fallen branches, jagged rocks and slippery lichen, you can sit right under the falls as they pound down before the water flows into the Mazaruni River. I make my way across with Khalid Hussain of The News from Pakistan, and Christopher Martin-Jenkins of The Times, who shows remarkable agility for a man in his early 60s.

The water is as red as can be, not from iron-ore deposits as I suspected, but with tannin from the leaves and bark of the thousands of trees. Our backs, stiff from pounding away at keyboards, were been loosened by 20 minutes under the pouring water. We clamber out to find Ted there. "They laughed at me when I came here," he says. "I went for a loan to a British bank once, and they said: 'Sorry, we don't give loans for Africa.' No one had even heard of this place."

And now? "We get hundreds of visitors. You won't get this anywhere else in the Caribbean. This is as close to nature as most people will ever get." He escorts us back to base camp and as we prepare to leave, he says: "Who'd have thought it, eh? Eco-tourism, they call it now. When I came here, I don't think the word even existed."

	'This was Caribbean cricket, fantasy style, with the tide washing in every over or so to smooth down the wicket .... and a crowd of thousands huddled round the action or parked in the shallows at midwicket'. © Getty Images

What do cricket writers do when there's no cricket to watch? Play cricket of course! For two days in Antigua, as the World Cup merry-go-round paused for breath, that was how the international media contingent passed their time, recharging their batteries by testing their distinctly average skills in a variety of typically Caribbean scenarios. It might be remiss to point out, but it would be far from inaccurate, that more of the region's unique flavour has been on display in these past 48 hours than has been permitted to shine through in a month of ICC-sanctioned shenanigans.

Everything about the Caribbean cricket experience owes itself to the unique accessibility of the players, men who have stepped off the field and straight back into the bosom of the culture that created them; everything about the ICC cricket experience, on the other hand, has been designed to erect barriers between them and us - massive great exclusion zones outside all of the grounds, colour-coded security clearance levels and extensive (excessive) checks at the entrances to the stadia. It wasn't always thus, and maybe it need not be again. Because the men who made the game great in these islands are as aghast at what has unfolded as the rest of us.

"We've had too many restrictions placed on us as Caribbean people," said the greatest of all Antiguans, Sir Vivian Richards, as the media gathered to take part in a six-hitting competition organised by one of the tournament's sponsors, Johnnie Walker. "We are unique people. We are different from Europeans and South Africans and Australians. We are different in terms of our living style and our vibrant way of life. I just believe that someone has held us by the throat and said 'no, I don't want you to shout anymore'."

Richards made his declaration at the Stanford Ground next to VC Bird Airport, an opulent and extraordinarily beautiful private ground fit to rival that of Nicky Oppenheimer or the Duke of Norfolk. The lush manicured bowling green of an outfield may be somewhat at odds with that traditional Caribbean experience, but when last year this ground was Antigua's venue for the Stanford 2020 competition, the stands teemed as the imaginations of the local people were captured as emphatically as the World Cup has managed to alienate them again.

I arrived early for the event, and instantly found myself dumping my laptop at the boundary's edge as a towering heave swirled towards me from a distant fellow in a maroon cap. Naturally I grassed the chance, leaving a sizeable divot in the pitch as I went down like the proverbial, but undeterred I held my ground for further offerings, eventually calling it quits with a dismal tally of one catch out of five, not to mention several dozen hits that sailed clean over my head.

The assailant, as I'd by now worked out, was Kenny Benjamin, who'd been happily roped in to spend his afternoon swinging the willow and working the bowling machine that would soon be feeding us media types nice loopy half-volleys to punt over the infield. As we milled around in the middle with a couple of his mates - Curtly Ambrose and Richie Richardson to be precise - the atmosphere could hardly have been less corporate or more welcoming. Inevitably, talk turned to the tournament of which these men have been made a very peripheral part, and the verdict was unanimous. "It's been a joke, man", was one of the most succinct appraisals.

In due course, it was time for the journalists to sign our legal waivers and don our pads (including, tediously, a helmet), and swing the bat for charity. Richards, with Ambrose keeping wicket, demonstrated how it should be done by clunking three clean cover-drives and a brace of clips off the toes; Cricinfo fared less well - two straight driven fours and a couple of miscues over the covers that rolled backwards after pitching. Still, a tally of US$200 was worse than a slap in the face with an Ambrose bouncer.

Twenty-four hours later, and we cricket loons were back for more punishment, this time down on the beach at a bar called Sun Haven, for a match between the Antiguan Legends and the assembled international media. This was Caribbean cricket, fantasy style, with the tide washing in every over or so to smooth down the wicket, a rabid chattering DJ calling the play in a boisterous faux-English accent in between bursts of Soca music, and a crowd of thousands (well, more than Bangladesh v New Zealand at any rate) huddled round the action or parked in the shallows at midwicket.

The details are immaterial but worthy of record. Cricinfo's correspondent took the new ball (to a very pertinent heckle of "excuse me, but I thought we were meant to be watching famous people") but grabbed three wickets, including one with the very first ball of the match (heckle that!). Richie Richardson was blindingly caught on the 45 by a young Indian journalist, while Sir Viv, prowling around his territory like a benevolent panther, smacked sixes for fun to post an imposing 140 in 15 overs. The media XI (or XVII to be precise) came close but no cigar, thanks in part to a host of run-outs caused by the ball being swept back into play by the tide.

The beauty of the event was its utter simplicity. A handful of specially printed T-shirts were as far as the corporate side dared to encroach, while legend and bystander alike were equally tickled by the little incidents that made the day, such as the drunk fielder on a motorboat out to sea, who toppled overboard - beer still in hand - as he reached out to catch one of Viv's many sixes. And afterwards, as the entire entourage retired to the bar, there was the sight of a latecomer, Ambrose, unloading the boot of his car as he and Richardson prepared the stage for their band, Dread and the Baldhead, as the party reached long into the night.

For all the talk of regenerating cricket in the Caribbean through the appointment of brand-new stadia and the transformation of the region's last-minute culture, accessibility and intimacy are the things that keep the game alive over here. Hardly a day goes by without another regret being added to the list of woes of this tournament, but if those of us out here working can be allowed so much fun on our days off, why-oh-why hasn't that same courtesy been extended, day-in-day-out, to the paying public? God knows, the Caribbean people are willing enough to party.

	Niall O'Brien: at the head of a spirited Irish World Cup campaign © AFP

By now you’ve heard the one about the Irish farmer who had to skip lambing season to open the bowling in the Super Eights of the cricket World Cup. Or, I’m sure, the one about the Irish teacher who needed permission from the education board because he had to roll some offbreaks in the Super Eights of the cricket World Cup. Stop me, though, if you’ve heard the one about the film-maker who, broke, was a few hours away from returning home when an Irish company put up some funds for him to stay another month to continue tracking the team in the Super Eights of the cricket World Cup.

It was in Sydney a year-and-a-half ago that Paul Davey saw Niall O’Brien, one of the heroes of Ireland’s current campaign, jogging in a park. “He had an Irish cricket jersey on. I went up I told him ‘I didn’t know Ireland had a cricket team’. He said, ‘We do, and we’re in the World Cup.’”

Davey, Irish, was then making short films in Australia, and this was the story he knew he wanted to do. He went back home, he watched Ireland play, he approached the Irish Cricket Union, told them he’d fund himself the entire project and all he wanted was access.

He was given it, full and free, and all through the tournament Davey has had an intimate view of one of the remarkable stories in World Cup history. He forged close friendships with the players, he sat with them in buses and hotels and bars, captured the moments of their greatest exultation and was by their side when they spoke of their insecurities. The opening bowler Dave Langford-Smith would refuse to come on camera because of his stammer. One night after a couple of beers he spoke so fluently that he could then barely be dragged off camera in the days after.

Within the first week the enormity, the range, of this thing had hit home. Having defeated Pakistan on an unforgettable day, the team left Kingston for Ocho Rios on the North Coast. It was a night of the grandest celebration, Irish style. Happy, hung-over, they returned the next morning to their Kingston team-hotel to the death of Bob Woolmer. “It was a real shock, a real downer, it all just seemed so unbelievable.”

Davey found in the story of the Irish cricket team greater resonances. A few days after they had qualified for the Super Eights the main Catholic and Protestant political parties home signed a historic power-sharing agreement. The team itself, leaving aside the foreigners, was six to five Catholic and Protestant. Davey was able to record emotional responses from them.

The story of non-Irish players itself was a reflection of a broader pattern. “The economy has been booming over the last 5-10 years, there has been some peace, it’s not seen as a place where bombs are going off all the time. For the first time we’ve had a lot of immigrants coming in. Ireland is changing very fast.”

Staying on, now, though Davey will be faced with another challenge: hundreds of hours more of footage to be compressed into a 52-minute film. Write him at paul.davey@erskinesolutions.com.au for details.

	The view of the old press box from the Richie Richardson stand © Andrew Miller

It's been almost ten months since the Antigua Recreation Ground hosted its last Test match. On June 6 last year, Fidel Edwards clung on for a draw against a striving Indian attack, and within hours the strains of Chickie's Disco had echoed for one last time through the streets of St John's, and the gates were padlocked on 25 years of history.

The vibrancy of that final send-off was a testament to the beloved status of "The ARG" - home of Antiguan cricket since time immemorial, and a Test venue since 1981. Perched in the heart of the capital, and wrapped in a higgedly piggedly maze of walls, gates and wooden fencing, it was a venue that, for all its shabbiness, still drew the curious to investigate what lay within.

This was truly a ground where vice and virtue met as equals. On the one side looms the wooden spire of St John's cathedral, ravaged by the elements but still retaining a certain magnificence; on the other lurks the barbed wire and ramparts of the island's prison, whose inmates used to double as the ARG's groundstaff -for many years under the watchful eye of Malcolm Richards, father of Sir Viv.

Now the ground is deserted, a husk of a bygone era left to rot even as the world's eye is cast across the Caribbean. For all the bold talk of regenerating cricket in the region, if the Antiguan experience is to be believed, the crass combination of greed and neglect has damaged the game beyond repair.

The ARG still has its uses. Before the World Cup it was the venue of a tri-series tournament between Bangladesh, Bermuda and Canada, and it will still be used when St Kitts, Nevis or the Leeward Islands come to play. But its days as an international venue are over, even though on Sunday, when the nets at Antigua's new ground were still too damp to use, it was ready to step in and provide practice facilities for the Bangladeshis.

By the time I made my visit, the place was deserted once again - save for a lone and lonely watchman sitting on a bench beneath the Viv Richards Pavilion. This was Amazon, a fixture at the ARG since 1978. A professional signpainter by trade, his was the honour of adding every new centurion to the pavilion honours board - 54 in all in a quarter of a century of Tests. He used to be the scoreboard operator as well, though his most recent duty was to paint the sightscreen black for the benefit of the netting batsmen.

"I see everything here," says Amazon, as history dances across his face and with it the instinctive feel for cricket that once defined the Caribbean. "The first Test century by Peter Willey. The second by Viv Richards. The third by Geoff Boycott. I see Richards' fastest hundred; Lara's innings, the highest run-chase, 418. And I see eight centuries on this ground as well. In one match. South Africa against West Indies 2005."

	The view of the St John's cathedral from the Antigua Recreation Ground © Andrew Miller

The ghosts of the game are everywhere as we wander out into the middle. On either side of the pavilion stand the hulking great scaffolds of the Andy Roberts Stand to the left and the "Gravy Stand" to the right, as nicknamed in honour of the legendary cross-dressing contortionist, Labon Kenneth Blackburn Leeweltine Buckonon Benjamin, who entertained the crowds for 12 years from 1988, before bowing out in a wedding-dress at the start of the new millennium.

Over at fine leg is the Richie Richardson Stand, flanked on either side by the bleachers - the cheapest wooden benches in the baking hot sun - and the open-air press hut, with its four rows of white desks: inadequate, it was deemed, for the demands of the self-proclaimed third biggest sporting event in the world. The creaking facilities had long been in need of a facelift, but the ground now seems even further removed from the shiny sanitation of the new stadium. The sheen of rust and woodworm is now destined to take a more permanent hold than ever.

"They could have rebuilt it," says Amazon. "They could have close Factory Road and Coronation Road, move the prison, expand the ground. They could have done that, but there was no planning. Instead they use all that money to build a new stadium. I thought it was a good idea until the games started. But the atmosphere's no good. The ticket prices are too high. You can't walk in with anything. You got a bottle of water, got to take off the cap. You can't go out to get food. You get nothing."

The perimeter of the ground is a jumble of discarded advertising hoardings and boarded-up snack-bars, where cricketing murals fade away on whitewashed stone walls. Rubbish has gathered by a hole in the fence, while tumbling out of a disused groundsman's hut is a pile of soggy clothing - incongruously ordinary, as if the discarded possessions of someone whose entire life had once been invested behind those wooden slats.

"It's more than sad what they done," says Amazon. "It doesn't leave me anywhere. They offered me a job at the new ground, but I decline it. So did a lot of people. I feel left out, after all the work I do for cricket throughout the years. I never been to the new ground. I know where it is but I never been, and I've no intention of ever going."

Outside the ground, on a roundabout where traffic never seems to pass, stands a large educative message on a billboard. "The Eight Blunders of the World," announces the sign, before listing in bold yellow lettering the deadly sins of modern-day living. For some reason, after what I've witnessed within the ARG's walls, "politics without principle" and "commerce without morality" strike a poignant chord.

	Finally, some Caribbean spirit turned up in Guyana...shame West Indies didn't © AFP

With a little admission about ticket prices and another message to fans to bring in the noise, even the ICC seem to have acknowledged fears expressed beforehand about the tournament, a situation superbly captured by Paul Harris in his Sunday Stabroek cartoon.

It has the World Cup CEO, Chris Dehring in a butler suit, presenting on a platter the CWC 2007: “Exactly how would you like it Sir…Not spicy… Not exuberant … Not…???” The man at the table is Malcolm Speed, wearing a Rasta hat with dreads, fish and plantain chips on the table before him, a bongo with Rally Roun’ De West Indies sitting beside him. “Oh! Lighten up will you, Chris ‘ol chap…?”

Indeed spontaneity and intimacy has been sacrificed. Take for example, the thing about musical instruments. Persons can carry conch shells, shak shaks and other instruments into the stadium with permission from the Local Organising Committee, we’re told. Persons can, but no normal person will. Few souls can have the same clinical approach to taking a musical instrument to the cricket as applying for a home loan. Iceboxes must have to be of a certain size. In Trinidad I was allowed to take in a bottle but only if I took off the cap. Meanwhile, given the rates, it ought be illegal to call those stalls selling food and drink Concessions as proud yellow banners do. And so on.

Many criticisms about this tournament have been made, as a brief visit to The Surfer will show, and most are very good ones.

Cancellations following the ousting of India and Pakistan hasn’t helped the mood. The entertainment has gone underattended. The historic Demerara Cricket Club, home to Lance Gibbs and Clive Lloyd, has set up a Legend’s Village with nightly exhibits and events; at nearby Independence Park, the mayor of Georgetown has organised another fete; an exhibition of cricket paintings by an artist of great repute is on, so is an excellent Jazz festival, there’s a lecture here, a signing session there, and all of them are basking in the spotlight of a 40-watt bulb.

All I can is that it was a relief to see some life out there today, some fun. For the first time in the Super Eights the stadium was near to packed. Among the things that Providence has over its atmospheric wooden predecessor, Bourda, is a grass mound. It was packed and liming and from the back of it was a view of a sugarcane field: it felt at least in some measure Caribbean.

No, The Buggles weren’t in town, but strange things were happening
on Guyana’s airwaves as I drove to the stadium. Stephen, my driver who was
in his early 20s, had switched on the radio almost as soon as I got in,
and much of our conversation centred about what West Indies needed to do
to stay alive in the competition. Even as Colin Croft and friends nattered
on about the conditions, Stephen fretted about the toss. The sky above was
slate-grey and the sun couldn’t be glimpsed. “You don’t want to be facing
dat Malinga in dem conditions, man,” he told me, tapping on the steering
wheel with his knuckles as the commentary team built up to the toss.

His anxiety was palpable. “Dat Daren Powell be de only man bowlin’ well,”
he told me. “He got good pace. We have a guy like Malinga … Fidel Edwards,
but he no have the accuracy.” I recalled the press conference on Saturday
and the searching questions that Croft had asked Brian Lara about the
tactics and team composition against New Zealand, criticism that had been
echoed by Michael Holding. What did Stephen think of Lara, and the former
greats slating him?

Caught between two stools, Stephen chose to do the splits. “Croft from
here [Guyana], man,” he said quietly, “but Lara great player. If he mek
runs, we win.” As we talked, the expert voices floating through the car
speakers engaged in analysis of their own. Croft isn’t an easy man to
silence, but a few seconds later, the station announcer managed to do just
that.

With a serious-sounding voice, he spoke of how the cricket talk was
“light-hearted chat” before the game began in half an hour. He then went
on to say that they were going back to the original programming, the
Mahakali religious group and their chants. The toss? Clearly not as
important as some bhajans about Hanuman.

Stephen swore out loud, and I felt like accompanying him. The stadium was
in sight, but now I wouldn’t know what had happened at the toss till I’d
walked through the security checks and into the media enclosure. As for my
driver, he’d have to fret and fume for half an hour before the religious
chants that he didn’t know or care for gave way to the highpoint of his
day. Karl Marx spoke of religion being the masses’ opium at a time when
organised sport was a distant dream. Had he been alive today, with a
once-great cricketing entity’s pride at stake, he might have revised his
views.