Three weeks ago, I wrote “Rugby World Cup 2023 – my thoughts”, just after that tournament had ended. Overlapping was the Cricket ODI World Cup 2023 tournament. Today the tournament ended and we now know the winner …

According to Wikipedia: “The 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup was the 13th edition of the Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men’s national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament was hosted by India. It started on 5 October and concluded on 19 November 2023, with Australia winning the tournament. Ten national teams participated. All had to qualify for the tournament through the 2023 Cricket World Cup qualification process. India qualified as hosts; Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa qualified via the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League, with the Netherlands and Sri Lanka securing the final two places via the qualifier tournament in Zimbabwe during June and July 2023. The West Indies missed out on qualification for the first time in their history … The tournament took place in ten different stadiums, in ten cities across the country. In the first semi-final India beat New Zealand, and in the second semi-final Australia beat South Africa. The final took place between India and Australia at Narendra Modi Stadium on 19 November, with the winning team, Australia, receiving US$4,000,000 in prize money. This was the sixth time Australia have won the tournament. The top eight placed teams in the tournament’s final points table qualified for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy, the next ICC ODI tournament.”

Just as with the Rugby World Cup, I have been following the Cricket equivalent with interest, albeit with the cricket listening to live and text commentary on the BBC website as opposed to, with the rugby, watching live games on ITV. While I am not an Australia supporter, I accept they were the deserved winners and as a cricket lover I am always pleased when the best team wins. Having said that, India won every game up to the final and were so convincing in their performances. As for Australia, they lost their first two games but after that got better with each game. As a purist, I like the idea of the ten teams all playing each other on a league basis with the top four teams going through to the semifinals. I had no doubt that the teams that did qualify for the semis were the best. For various reasons, I preferred South Africa, then India and then New Zealand to be the tournament winners but have no complaints after what seemed two one sided semi finals with New Zealand and South Africa losing out. I enjoyed the cricket overall and there were some fantastic performances. I expected more from England but unlike with the rugby they under performed. The team of the tournament for me was Afghanistan, who unexpectedly out-performed some of the big guns and, but for the innings of the tournament by Glen Maxwell, could have even qualified for the semi-finals. All in all, it was an excellent, enjoyable tournament. The question that remains for me, is what is there now for me to do by way of light relief, given both the rugby and cricket world cups are both over 🙂