Pure Sporting Theatre and The Cricket World Cup

Yesterday I was absolutely glued to my television from 7pm onwards as I watched the final round of The Masters golf tournament from Augusta. It was everything that live sport should be. It had none of the contentious umpiring/ refereeing of other sports and no cheating or diving. It was just the skill of individuals manipulating a tiny ball with a selection of clubs, and my god is skill the right word. I've only watched golf for a year or so and only closely over the past 6-8 months, but I will certainly continue to do so. I knew my life had changed and my perspective of the sport had changed during the Open Championship last year when I clapped a tee-shot by Tiger Woods, much maligned for his personal life, hugely questioned and lacking form, but he produced one piece of magic that made me clap at the TV... it takes something pretty special to get that kind of reaction believe me. Going in to the final round and the result was still wide open, and the drama started immediately. Tiger Woods began a charge that left him in the hunt, and at 1 point, having been seven shots back at the start of the day was tied for the lead at 10 under par. Ultimately this wasn't enough as Charl Schwarzel birdied the last 4 holes in a miraculous show of nerves and ability to take the much coveted green jacket. There was immense play, there were strange shots, and there was the horrid luck that saw Rory McIlroy, who led going into the final round, turn a bad start into a tragic story of what might have been. I look forward to the rest of the years majors and a test of Rory's character as well as more sporting theatre at its best. On the same theme, the cricket world cup has not long finished. Unlike the last tournament, held in the Caribbean, this one seemed to go down well. It certainly seemed to have everything, and most of it involved the England team. A dramatic high scoring tie against India, a dramatic high scoring throw-away against a hugely promising Ireland team, a dramatic turnaround in a low-scoring game against South Africa and they also managed to dramatically snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against the West Indies to make the quarter finals before being unceremoniously dumped out by finalists Sri Lanka. So one thing the tournament wasn't short of was drama... India were deserving winners and I'm pleased for Sachin Tendulkar who has achieved everything on a personal level and is now a world champion too. One final word on the tournament though; Ireland and the other associate nations won't get a chance to compete in the next tournament as the ICC looks to downsize, I'm sure they have their reasons, and the standard is one obvious one, but how will teams like Ireland improve if they're excluded?