World Cup 14 best

Finally we're done and can relax for a bit. But before the IPL starts and the County Championship get underway, here we pick our top 14 World Cup snippets in honour of the last time such a number will appear in the tournament, at least until the ICC pull their collective head out of their collective arse.

14. Best associate

Despite the miserable performances of Canada and Kenya, the other smaller nations were pretty entertaining, especially the Irish who take the nod here for being at worst competitive in every game they played. To get rid smacks of short-termism and a lack of awareness of the game outside it's established centres. To bar the likes of Afghanistan from the tournament is to it's long-term discredit.

13. Shot of the tournament

Step forward 19-year old Hiral Patel.

12. Most sustained assault on a decent bowler

Aided by some miserable leg-stump full tosses, admittedly, but Ross Taylor going absolutely batshit insane against Pakistan was truly astonishing. Also, it only came after our...

11. Best birthday gift

When he was put down twice before he'd made 10 in that innings.

10. Most ridiculous use of the UDRS

This was out. So was this.

9. Best batsman

Virender Sehwag was, as usual, the most exciting, Sachin Tendulkar his usual imperious self, AB de Villiers all dreamy shots around the ground and Jonathan Trott a reliable grinder. And while Tilakaratne Dilshan topped the list with 500 runs, his team-mate and captain Kumar Sangakkara's chanceless 465 at an average of 93 was pure class and he's the one we'd get out of bed at stupid o'clock to watch.

8. Best bowler

Ahead of the semi-final, this writer was heard to comment to a friend of Indian extraction that he fancied Pakistan as they had the better bowlers - Umar Gul and Shahid Afridi. In the end, Zaheer Khan outdid them both and shone in the final to nick the award. Kemar Roach deserves mention too - proper old-fashioned West Indian quick. We hope there are more like him back in the Caribbean.

7. Player of the tournament

Plenty of nominees. Sachin was brilliant, Sehwag explosive, de Villiers all class, Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi and Zaheer Khan all unplayable, Tilakaratne Dilshan and Yuvraj Singh stellar with bat and ball, but we go for Peter Borren because if we don't, he will probably kill us.

6. Most ridiculous scapegoat

Jonathan Trott must have upset Bob Willis in other ways than being an extremely reliable run-scorer to have two 50-plus scores labelled "match-losing innings" by the former England fast bowler turned professional curmudgeon.

5. Best game

It had to be one featuring excitement merchants England. The heart-stopping tie with India swung one way and back the other about five different time during 100 overs. Best game of 50-over cricket? Quite probably, yes.

4. Biggest England implosion

A category with plenty of contenders - the loss to Ireland, to Bangladesh, the stumble against the Dutch - but the clear winner was the sight of eleven hollow shells of men who had been on the road for over six months have their pants pulled down by Sri Lanka. Which leads nicely on to...

3. Most career-defining knock

In the space of 50 balls, Kevin O'Brien made himself a potentially quite rich man, wrote his legend into the history books and helped his country defeat their former colonial overlords with an amazing display of controlled brutality.

2. Best wind-up merchant

Kyle Mills, twelfth man for New Zealand, who came onto the field with the sole intention of letting Faf du Plessis know what he thought of the AB de Villiers run out. And that's a lovely segué to....

1. Biggest choke

Sorry South Africa, but it really was a choke of epic proportions.


And we're done. We can't believe it'll be a whole six days when we get to watch another cricket match - the IPL starts on Friday. The schedulers really need to make sure these enormous hiatuses don't happen like this in the future. Here's hoping the ICC see sense before the next tournament in Australia and New Zealand in four years time and don't exclude the associates and we can enjoy another extravaganza because, for all it's faults, this has been a pretty damn fine tournament.