The third ICC World Twenty20 tournament starts on Friday in the West Indies, and for once England have a decent chance of winning a global cricket event: this new format of the sport does not yet have an outstanding team.
No less importantly, this tournament should be fun and do much for the revival of West Indian cricket.In other words, it should be the complete opposite of the last 50-over World Cup in the West Indies in 2007, which was an unmitigated disaster from which their cricket is still trying to recover. From the moment the ICC – under a previous regime imposed.
An Australian-designed logo, the last World Cup alienated just about every person living in the Caribbean with its high ticket-pricing, tedious schedule, obsessive deference to corporate sponsors, and complete disregard for the local population.
All this can be read between the lines of the welcoming address by Haroon Lorgat, the new chief executive of a far more sensitive ICC: ''Accessible ticket pricing and a short, sharp tournament played over 17 days should make this a fantastic Caribbean cricket party. We want fans to bring their voices, their loudest noisemakers [sic] and their most outrageous costumes and face paints to the ground.''
This does make a change from the last World Cup, when there were effectively signs saying 'Locals Keep Out' and they weren't even allowed to bring in water.
England have almost as good a chance as any other country, their two weaknesses being the inexperience of their opening pair and their lack of know-how in getting over the line at a world event. Whereas in Test cricket the No 3 has always been identified as the most important batsman, the two most important batsmen in a 20-over game are No 1 and 2: and England will start with Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter, who total three international appearances between them, and none of those has been in the West Indies.
England have the other prerequisites: an excellent middle order of Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan, who are all coming straight from the Indian Premier League; a savvy pace attack led by James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who learned about the cloying nature of modern West Indian pitches less than a year ago; a couple of spinners in Graeme Swann and Mike Yardy, who can push the ball into those pitches, which is a much better tactic than tossing the ball up and recovering it from the stands; and a captain who now fancies the job in Collingwood, provided he can make himself heard above the 'noisemakers'.
In any global cricket tournament though Australia are always thereabouts – they have won six of the 17 so far – and this time they have real variety in attack, including two fast left-handers, as well as batting that is kicked off by the world's first Twenty20 specialist cricketer, David Warner.
South Africa have loads of batting and the most incisive pace bowler currently in world cricket, Dale Steyn. India are candidates too, but they are always slow at starting (and sometimes at fielding), they will be tired after the IPL, and Virender Sehwag has just withdrawn; while Pakistan, the current holders, are at sixes and sevens and have to beat Bangladesh in their qualifying group.
For the health of world cricket, which needs West Indian ebullience, the hosts have to enjoy a good run – starting with their qualifying matches against England and Ireland at Providence in Guyana. They have good men in charge – captain Chris Gayle and the new coach Ottis Gibson – but they are starting at a low base of administrative chaos.
So the Women's World Twenty20, which will take place simultaneously in St Kitts up until the semi-final stage, is significant too. The women's game in the West Indies has never taken off – until last year when they beat England, the No 1 team in all formats, in a 20-over series. They have a star player in Stafanie Taylor, only 18, but built to hit a long ball. As women prop up Caribbean society more than in most places, because so many men have to emigrate if they don't want to serve tourists, it is not fanciful to see them leading the game's revival there.
From the moment that Columbus arrived in the West Indies, the islands have been portrayed as Paradise for commercial reasons. This time, too, the reality is different. Afghanistan's cricketers will be warmly welcomed, serenaded and garlanded, as their road to qualifying for this competition has been as rocky as one of their mountain passes at home; but with Afghanistan comes a security threat.
The Taliban have anathematised all sport. Cricket is played only in the areas of Afghanistan patrolled by western forces. Indeed, it is almost as much the colonial game as when the British took it to India in the 19th century and graciously allowed each community in turn to play against them, starting with Parsis as the most Anglophile. The American embassy in Kabul is reported to be funding new cricket grounds; the Afghan team has some powerful enemies.
It is as well therefore, simply on security grounds, that Afghanistan have been drawn in the same qualifying group as India and South Africa and will be confined to the island of St Lucia; and, for all the virile qualities of men who learned the game in refugee camps in Pakistan, and who are as hungry for success as any cricketers there have been, they cannot foreseeably qualify for the Super Eight stage in Barbados and St Lucia, let alone the semi-finals.
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