Sixth form student from Winchester Guy Watts looks at the minnows looking to upset the natural order at this year’s Cricket World Cup.
On Monday, Canada bowled Kenya out for 198 at the Cricket World Cup and proceeded to knock the total off with 5 wickets and almost as many overs to spare. For Canada this is a significant victory and is not to be sniffed at: England’s victory over South Africa could be described as comparable in terms of the teams’ relative statures and there has been plenty said about the significance of the latter game. This represented Canada’s second only ever win at a World Cup and the players’ delight is both deserved and understandable.
However, the more pressing matter concerning this fixture is not whether Kenya should have beaten such a team or something as trivial as the amount the pitch turned, but whether this is in fact a match befitting of the World Cup stage. Along with the Netherlands and Ireland as the only associate rather than test-playing nations, coming into the tournament the sides were unfancied and unglamorous. Most importantly, they did not represent the way to restoring the 50–over game to its previous status as a telling sign of a country’s competitiveness, from the overplayed and increasingly irrelevant afterthought to a test series or series of Twenty20 internationals that it has become.
Watching and Thinking 