Opinion The glory days

One can debate whether Ireland’s win over the West Indies in the World Cup earlier this week would qualify as a true upset. Ireland has been around for a while now, its players are regulars in the English county circuit and the West Indies don’t seem too bothered about winning anymore. But in its own way, the result set off the World Cup in much the same manner that the marquee clashes of the first week of the tournament did. Upsets, especially at the World Cup, increasingly represent the last exciting feature of ODIs.

Upsets in T-20 cricket have an everyday quality to them. Reduce the game to a shootout and the favourite retains only a marginal edge. Test cricket, on the other hand, is a members-only club that isn’t currently inviting upstarts. Then, there is the punctilious back-patting. A close Test match doesn’t go by without the viewers being reminded of what is so right about the long format. World Cup upsets have retained, despite the best efforts of the administrators, sponsors and broadcasters, an agreeable degree of charm and import, and for all kinds of fans. Over 100 overs, there is enough time for the exhibition of skill, but not enough for the viewer to tire of the underdog narrative.

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In their enduring appeal to the neutral, upsets chime with the community and celebratory spirit of World Cups. Over several editions, there have been just a handful of noteworthy upsets — Zimbabwe over Australia in 1983, Kenya over the West Indies in 1996, Bangladesh over Pakistan in 1999, Ireland over Pakistan in 2003 and England in 2011 — and so the novelty remains. But most of all, World Cup upsets remain the bits of a movie that are well made and not Oscar-bait. The pizzazz of the Cup upset hasn’t been encapsulated in a statistic and used in a punchline. At least, not yet.