Dazzling colour! Exhilarating flair! Stifling pressure! Just like your drawer of flamboyant undergarments that you only wear on special quadrennial occasions, this is the ICC-sanctioned and IPL-friendly World Cup!
The ODI world championships are the game’s showpiece event outside of the BCCI presidential elections, and this version will be held in the cricket-craving climes of Australasia for the first time since 1992. In a nod to tradition, the event has been open to entrants from the world, with the winning prize being a cup that looks nothing like a cup.
Similar again to your risqué collection of reggies, this tournament is also known for its controversy and filth. If I know a habitual self-harmer like cricket, then this edition is sure to be a sucker for the same style of drama, scams and corruption that have plagued those before it.
But what style of gobsmacking boilover or embarrassing ruckus awaits us in 2015?
Luckily for you, we here at The Roar have fired up our patented Tea Leaves 2000 and cross-referenced the findings with our database of underworld contacts to bring you this dubious World Cup forecast*.
*Note: Contains minimal traces of actual cricket.
Scheduling fiasco
After opting for a thorough format incorporating a Leverock-sized pool stage and some knockout matches around the Winter solstice, the ICC is braced for a bored public’s backlash from the outset.
However, after becoming accustomed to tournaments that can be measured in trimesters, the fans begrudgingly accept the elephantine draw – right up until news filters through about the February 14 opener.
With ‘Put in Some Effort and You Might Get Lucky’ Day losing out to a 12-hour double-header, the governing body comes under heavy fire when hot-spots in the boudoir radically fade to crisis stage towards the tournament’s latter stages.
Boycotts
After minimal deliberation with high-ranking officialdom, the West Indies opt out of travelling to Manuka Oval to play their pool match against Zimbabwe due to ethical concerns.
Upon discovering the match is being played in Canberra on a Tuesday night, Chris Gayle implores team management to avoid association with a nightlife regime that powers down at 9pm, even despite the allure of Fyshwick and the area’s relaxed laws towards Caribbean-style ‘parsley’.
The boycott is confirmed by Richie Richardson after he describes a day spent in the area as ‘worse than when my mother died’.
Radio scam
Searching for that tactical edge, and because he’s always wondered what it’s like to be a courier, South Africa’s AB de Villiers is caught wearing a Bluetooth earpiece in the field in a move emulating the innovative yet plainly illegal tactic used by Hansie Cronje in the 1999 World Cup.
Initially, match officials fear that cricket’s Bambi is another closet shyster who’s tuning in to advice from the coach in the stands, but are grateful when they discover he’s just waiting to hear Hotel California so he can be the fifth caller through for a Triple M windcheater.
Minnow Magic
After starting the tournament making merry with lopsided scorecards and amusing names (think Flower, Burger, O’Brien et al), a minnow ‘captures the public’s imagination’ with some lion-hearted performances under oppressive professional heat.
Then with a surge from a few cult heroes and a big spoonful of opposition complacency, the minnow springs a dubious boilover against a competition aristocrat.
Cue scenes of chaos all around from the ex-pat fan-base to the anti-corruption unit, followed by a misguided groundswell of support from the public to have ‘this tiny cricket mad nation’ given Test status.
Customary booze and PED scandal
A former legends mentoring program that encourages players to ‘follow in the footsteps of the greats’ goes awry when David Warner takes a diuretic and Joe Root slugs riesling on a pleasure craft before it capsizes in Sydney harbour.
Numerical balls-up
It’s the final tense moments of the pool stages. Feeling bookish and nasty, New Zealand embark on a run chase go-slow to massage various net run-rates and hamper Australia’s table position, mainly just because they hate Australia.
Their egghead formula is a decimal-dotted doozy incorporating seasonal adjustments for daylight savings and stamp duty, so when the match is interrupted by rain and Duck-Lew, all calculators within the arena look at the ground and pretend to be cordless phones.
Being masters of formulaic chaos, the ICC decide to intervene with a special Interpretation Advisory Panel of Stephen Hawking and Rain Man, and once the weather clears they decree that South Africa require 39 runs to win from the last ball of their first match, and they need to achieve this in the dark. Tomorrow.
Unrest on the subcontinent
After being one of the 13 nations not to earn the title of World Champion, a (subcontinent nation) goes in to utter meltdown.
In line with disgruntled citizen protocol, furious punters spill on to the streets to go hectic on the umpires before painting the name of the (team captain/association chairman/national prime minister) on the side of an animal and posing beside it for the cameras. High demand then sends local manufacturers in to an effigy famine.
Eventually, the furore dies down after around four to six months, allowing the public to return to their normal everyday business of torching posters of (Greg Chappell and Darrell Hair).
Roarers: memorable messes? Magical mirth? What’s your predictions for the World Cup?
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