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Walking through south Manchester last night, we felt very aware of the fact that this World Twenty20 final isn’t particularly registering with the nation. There are England flags on cars and houses, but they’re for the other England World Cup bid.
It’s understandable really. This is the more frequent of two different cricket world cups and it’s only being shown on pay TV. But England are in the final and it’s disappointing that media coverage is pretty minimal unless you go looking for it. It makes it feel like less of an event.
We’ve followed the tournament and clearly we want England to win, but until now we haven’t had the level of expectation that we expected (‘expected expectation’?). However, this morning, we’ve read a couple of match previews and suddenly we’re starting to get a bit excited.
This is how matches used to feel before England started playing every other day. This is an event. It’s not best of seven. There’s a cricket match tonight and England will either win the World Twenty20 or they’ll win nothing.
The baboon picture fills me with optimism in a way that even Eoin Morgan can’t.
Not sure about South Manchester, but in our neck of the woods there has been talk of little other than the World T20 final this weekend.
My definition of “our neck of the woods” is basically Daisy’s flat, so perhaps it is not an entirely representative sample..
I’m glad the baboon isn’t mooning in the picture. As we Brits say, the moon’s a baboon.
I’m very excited; my family is very excited; one or two of my friends who have Sky are very excited; and everyone else doesn’t even know it’s on.
Which part of south Manchester were you walking through, KC? ‘Cos if it was Wythenshawe or Hulme, I would not have been aware of the state of interest in cricket tournaments either, my mind being 100% engaged with other more pressing matters.
Fuckin’…Fuck yeah!!!!
So. They won. Does this mean it’s ok to like Twenty20 now?
I’ve been excited for the past couple of weeks, and now I’m even more exciited. I watched the game in an Ozzy bar with an Ozzy mate. O wan’t very welcome come the end.
Oh, don’t let Price get excited. He’s not welcome on the bandwagon.
Three different cricket world cups, KC. Or have they stopped the Champion’s Trophy? I honestly can’t remember.
No, it’s still going. We discounted it, even though the reasons why it’s not a world cup are spurious at best.
It’s a tournament that isn’t a world cup because it only features sides with a realistic chance of winning the world cup.
It was the same in Aus media. I went looking for the semi-final win v Pakistan and as a Dockers’ fan it was quite galling to trawl through a crap pile of gloating articles about Collingwood defeating the Dockers before I could find Hussey getting any praise anywhere. It’s out of season and also I think it just goes with this format. It’s just not taken that seriously still.