Just a short while ago, it was nearly impossible to watch cricket live and legally in the United States. We were forced to watch dodgy pirated streams, or highlights on YouTube, or follow the ball by ball on Cricinfo.

Oh my how much has changed.

Which is why a year or so ago I started the World Cricket Internet Schedule for US Viewers. It is exactly what it says it is: a guide as to which matches are going to be streamed legally on the Internet, where to watch them, and when (all times eastern) – specifically for those of us living in the States. And tonight I took the time to update the schedule for the entire summer, from the Tri-Nation series in the West Indies that starts this week through to the end of the Ashes – (I have yet to add the England vs Australia one-dayers, but I will get them up there soon.)

And there is a lot coming up. In fact, there will be International Cricket live and legal online for 37 of the next 60 days. That’s right, nearly two thirds of your summer could spent doing nothing but watching cricket. Sounds alright to me…

The tournaments include:

– The aforementioned Tri-Nation (West Indies, Sri Lanka, and India) series in the Caribbean
– South Africa in Sri Lanka
– India in Zimbabwe
– The Ashes

ESPN3.com will be showing the first two series, and they have really picked it up with regard to broadcasting cricket – so it must be working for them, which is great news for us fans.

Some other notes regarding the guide:

– If you are planning to take a vacation and don’t want to miss anything, the longest gap between matches is August 14th through August 20th
– Ireland has a packed International calendar – and Cricket Ireland might very well stream some of their matches online – I will get them added as I find out
– As with everything else in life, the guide is subject to change

Do check it out – and cheers!

Yesterday, during the Champions Trophy final, I received this tweet:

@limitedovers In fairness, within cricket circles the sport is already 42% laughingstock.

— Burton DeWitt (@bsd987) June 23, 2013

I am taking him out of context, as were discussing ESPN’s decision not to put the final of the Champions Trophy on television, just online, but I think his point still stands: most cricket fans (far more than 42% surely), even the most ardent ones, think cricket is a joke, a parody of itself, and yes, a laughingstock.

We all love to hate cricket. Love to poke fun at it. Love to feel all sheepish when we tell people we are cricket fans.

Yesterday was no exception.

The tournament itself was a meaningless ICC cash grab, the organizers refused to put a reserve day in the schedule so the final HAD to happen on Sunday, the match was shortened to a 20/20 but with ODI rules, and the rain turned the entire game into a farce.

But.

It was a great day for cricket.

Gary Naylor said it best:

@TestMatchSofa Even the dullest form of the game in an inconsequential tournament in a match hit by weather is still fantastic. Cricket eh?

— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) June 23, 2013

That is something we all tend to forget: it’s a great game.

Sure there are days when we all, myself included, want to call it quits as cricket supporters. The spot fixing scandals, the corruption at every level, the seemingly endless parade of meaningless and morally bankrupt T20 tournaments…

But at the end of the day, we are here for a reason: because it’s a great game. Every format brings something different to the table and has the capability to thrill and entertain.

Once the rain delays finally subsided yesterday, I found myself permanently glued to my computer screen. The game is just simply great entertainment from start to finish. Even when everything including mother nature was conspiring against yesterday’s final, it still delivered.

But maybe cricket is great to watch not in spite of the fact that it tries so hard to make us hate it, but because of that fact. Cricket is a coldhearted lover that we keep running back to. Because we think we can change them. Settle them down. Make them love us back with as much passion as we love them.

One more chance, this time it’ll be different.

Or maybe not.

Maybe the game has existed for all these years, in all these formats, on all these continents for one simple reason: it’s a great game.

Sometimes we all need to take a step back and remember while we are all here in the first place. For me, yesterday was one of those times – and I hope it was for you, too.

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One thing I did learn yesterday, was that Indian cricket supporters have their convictions, and they stand by them no matter the outcome. I knew that already to an extent but when I tweeted that India would now forgive Dhoni and Ishant after the Morgan wicket, the response was fast and furious to the contrary:

I tend to forgive the athletes on the teams I support rather quickly, but Indian cricket supporters do not. It speaks highly of their passion for the game and their team. A passion I both respect and admire.

As @fwildecricket put it yesterday, it was great to see India win, as they are “(t)he beating heart of world cricket.

I could not agree more.

Congrats to India and their supporters. And congrats to all of cricket. A great day.

On Thursday night, I watched Game 7 of the NBA Finals – well, I watched the second half anyway – and this morning I am watching the Final of the ICC Champions Trophy.

I am not going to compare and contrast the two sports – they are so diametrically different that that would be a silly and churlish exercise. Like comparing Beethoven to Katy Perry.

But I want to make a note about the fans at each game. First: the NBA.

It was Game Seven of the Finals: the Miami Heat, who for really ridiculous reasons are the NBA’s most hated franchise, against the San Antonio Spurs, who became the darling of all the neutral fans mostly because they were not the Miami Heat.

All of that added a real flavor to the game, and plus it was game seven, one of the greatest events in sport, and it was the Finals, and it was Lebron, the greatest player of his generation.

But, the fans in Miami, like all fans in the NBA, still needed to be told when to cheer. Like sheep being herded into a pen.

I mean, when your team is up by four with three minutes to play and the other team has the ball, you shouldn’t need urging from the PA Announcer and the electronic scoreboard to chant “DEE! FENSE! DEE! FENSE!”.

But NBA fans do, for some reason, and I think that is just plain dumb.

And some might say that the Miami Heat are the exception, that they have really terrible fans, and while that might be true, every NBA team prompts their fans to cheer certain ways at certain moments. The same is true in baseball, and gridiron football.

It takes all of the rock n’ roll out of sport. All of the spontaneity. And, I dare say, a great deal of the fun. It turns the fans from a living, breathing part of the game, into a group of corporate automatons.

My American friends often ask me “why cricket?” – and while the answer changes daily, today the answer is: because cricket fans don’t need to be told when to cheer and when not to.

All of that said, it was a cracking game. If the NBA was always that entertaining it would be bigger than the NFL and the Premier League combined.

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Watching the Champions Trophy this morning and I have to give credit to the fans: Edgbaston has a party-like atmosphere, despite all of the rain and start/stop nature of the game. They have been patient, engaged, and loud.

And also: 90% Indian.

When the USA Men’s Soccer team plays a home match against Mexico, or a Central or South American squad, the crowds are decidedly for their opponents – unless the game is in the northern half of the country.

But that is expected, because soccer is not that big of a deal in America, and we have a large immigrant population. But cricket was invented in England, and while they also have a large immigrant population, it does not change the fact that the game is no longer England’s…it is India’s. And the makeup of the crowd today in Birmingham is emblematic of that fact.

The future of the game lies in Southeast Asia, and not in Northwest England.

But today is today, the future is not here quite yet, and England is having a real go at India’s top order, and this might just be their day.

England beating India in a limited overs tournament final, in England, in front of decidedly Indian contingent, shows how healthy the sport really is.

**UPDATE** Of course, India ended up winning in thrilling fashion, so the sentence should read: India beating England, in England…etc.

And that’s not even mentioning that the match is being broadcast live and legal on ESPN3 here in the USA.

Despite everything, and I know most of you will disagree: it’s been a good day for cricket.

America

I love America.

And not in the ultra-nationalist, “AMERICA FUCK YEAH” sense – but in the “grand experiment”, utopian sense. When I bike by a park in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis on a summer’s evening, and it is full of people of every shape, size, color, and creed, playing soccer, softball, lacrosse, horseshoes, and chess: that is when I love America. That is when I am proud to be an American.

And, so, last weekend, as I was walking the dog, I noticed kids playing cricket in the park down the street from my house, and I was in love with America; I was proud to be an American.

Of course, that sounds silly, and of course America, and especially Minnesota, has serious segregation issues. It was not a rainbow of humanity playing cricket on Saturday, in other words.

But my point stands, as cricket slowly but surely inches its way into the average American’s consciousness, I fall a little bit in more in love with my country.

Cricket becoming popular in America is what America is all about.

Children of Asian immigrants playing cricket on a baseball diamond in the Midwest United States is what America is all about.

The next step is for children of all backgrounds to join them; that’s when my heart will really swell.

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Infinity

I have been greatly enjoying the Champions Trophy.

There is a part of international cricket that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around: the infinity of it all. Tours and tests and round and round with no clear season or winner or ending. I think my inability to comprehend it or for my brain to find sense in it springs from the fact that I am an American and that I came to the sport late in life. But tournaments such as the one taking place in England and Wales this summer are the opposite of forever: a short period of time, a clear winner, and most importantly: an ending.

It is a nice antidote to the literally endless international schedule.

Also, the tournament itself, despite being a wasteful ICC money grab, has been a great success. Thrilling matches, great individual performances, packed houses, and the final everyone wanted: India vs England.

Well, that was the final I wanted.

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British Baseball Announcers

This is worth your time if you have not seen it already. Downright hilarious; especially for those that follow both baseball and cricket:

Short post tonight, but if you have not done so already, be sure to listen to (or read) The Cricket Couch‘s fascinating interview with Rohan Chandran, one of the founding members of Cricinfo.

I found the interview especially interesting because I learned that Cricinfo has very strong and clear Minnesota roots. Back in early 1993, when the site was not a website at all but a glorified Internet Relay Chat (IRC), University of Minnesota students Neeran Karnik and Simon King were integral members of the core group of amateur coders, mechanical engineers, and just general cricket nuts throughout the world who used IRC as a way to “broadcast” cricket scores to fans around the globe via the Internet – and their work eventually morphed into the Cricinfo website we all know today.

In fact, many Internet and cricket historians credit Simon King as the true “founder” of the site for his development of the #Cricinfo IRC bot in the spring of 1993. 

And finally, one very key moment in Cricinfo’s development was its move from IRC to Gopher – one of the very first web browsers – which was of course invented by a team from the UofM. And Chandran gives clear credit to Neeran Karnik for setting the site up on Gopher.

I urge you to go listen to the podcast or read the transcript – it is really fascinating stuff.

For more on Simon King, I recommend Cricinfo’s 20th anniversary timeline.

And finally, cheers, as always, to The Cricket Couch for always providing us with such amazing content.

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Update: More great information from Rohan Chandran’s blog. Also both Chandran and Neeran Karnik are on Twitter.

Remarkably, despite the fact that both Karnik and King were at the University of Minnesota at the same time, the two never met in person.

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Update #2: Be sure to check out Neeran’s comment below for even more of the Cricinfo backstory.

Cricinfo is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary.

It is truly remarkable, considering the state of the Internet in 1993 compared to the state of the Internet in 2013, that the site has not only endured, but thrived.

Sambit Bal wrote a lovely tribute to the site that I cannot recommend enough. He says it better than I can:

In the sands of human history two decades are no more than a speck, but it is the sum of life for the World Wide Web. The internet has been around in some form or the other since the early 1980s, but websites as we know them didn’t come around till about 1993, by when, incredibly, Cricinfo existed. Before Twitter, before Facebook, before Google, before Hotmail and Yahoo, before iPhones and BlackBerries, and even before proper web browsers, there was Cricinfo.

Familiarity dulls our sense of wonder and we are prone to take for granted things that become part of our daily routine. But consider this. Before Cricinfo, the only way to find out what was happening in the game from a non-cricket part of the world was to put in an expensive international call. I have a friend who had his mother in Delhi post to the US newspaper clippings of each day’s report after every Test. She once forgot to include the last day’s report, which left him tormented for days.

As Simon King, who led a bunch of cricket samaritans in shaping and nurturing Cricinfo through the early years said: before Cricinfo, it was the dark ages.

The site is entirely integral to the sport. And while there are both positive and negative things one could say about its stranglehold on Internet based cricket reporting, I honestly believe that Cricinfo saved cricket.

Not Sky Sports, not Sachin Tendulkar, not the Twenty20.

It was Cricinfo, all along, that kept the game alive through some of the darkest decades the sport had ever experienced, and now that the sport is entering a new golden age (my opinion) it has Cricinfo, and ESPN by extension, to thank.

And speaking on a personal level: I am not a cricket fan today if Cricinfo does not exist.

Fact.

And I would bet that many of my fellow American born cricket supporters, and continental European cricket supporters, and other cricket fans from the sport’s backwaters are also not fans if Cricinfo does not exist.

Furthermore, the Asian Indian ex-pat community, as Sambit states above, relies entirely on Cricinfo to stay in touch with the sport they left behind. There are 2.8 million Asian Indians in the USA right now – would they still be cricket fans without Cricinfo? Or would they have moved on to baseball, or soccer. Tough to tell, of course, but you have to at least give Cricinfo some credit for keeping them hooked.

(And that is a bit of a chicken or the egg situation: Are Asian Indians ex-pats the world world over still cricket fans because of Cricinfo? Or is Cricinfo’s status in the sport due to the fact that there are tens of millions of Asian Indian ex-pats? Probably a bit of both).

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And so, like I said, I really do not have a lot to add here. I do urge everyone to check out Cricinfo’s anniversary coverage. It really is fascinating. There is a great story on what it was like to do ball-by-ball commentary during the 1996 World Cup.

And while some have issues with the site, and while some might think that its status constitutes a monopoly and is bad for the game, I think the site is just brilliant, from top to bottom. Not infallible, of course, but I love that our game has one space for us all to conger, unlike football or basketball. I think we fans are extremely lucky to have Cricinfo – shoot, I think cricket overall is extremely lucky to have Cricinfo.

I also believe that this thriving and wonderful blogging community that we all enjoy is also extremely lucky to have Cricinfo: not just for the story ideas and the match reports and Statsguru: but I think its monopoly in a lot of ways created our underground cricket writing community. And I think we can all agree that that is something to be thankful for.

And so, thank you Cricfino writers, editors, and code jockeys. Thank you Walt Disney and Wisden and ESPN. Thanks to the poor souls that have to sell their advertising space. Thanks to accountants and office managers and assistants. Thanks to everyone involved.

Happy birthday and here’s to another 20 years! Mazel tov!

Most of you have probably seen the latest “article” from BuzzFeed: Why The USA Needs To Give In And Embrace Cricket.

A synopsis of their reasons:

1. The games aren’t as long as most think
2. The players don’t always wear white – in fact sometimes they wear PINK
3. It’s similar enough to baseball
4. It’s hard
5. Players have to pay attention or they might get hit in the face (with the ball)
6. There’s trash talk
7. The fielding positions have funny names
8. Fans dress fashionably but also sometimes they wear costumes
9. There is beer
10. Sometimes it rains (?)
11. Hardly any countries play it so America could dominate (Paging, Peter Della Penna. Peter Della Penna to the front desk.)
12. Alastair Cook is super hot
13. Lily Allen likes cricket
14. Benedict Cumberbatch likes cricket
15. The princes like cricket
16. Doctor Who likes cricket
17. And you can play it whilst eating a sandwich

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Yes, I know, it’s all meant tongue firmly in cheek, but some of those reasons are quite valid, and my list of reasons why Americans would love cricket, while shorter, was at least kind of similar:

1. The Two Chucks (what happened to those guys anyway?)
2. The blogging community
3. Lasith Malinga
4. Twenty20s
5. There’s beer
6. The fancy dress

Of course, with the exception of number three, those are all things that happen off the pitch, but here is an open letter to American Sports Fans explaining what they are missing out on by ignoring what’s happening on the pitch:

The game lasted five days. There were over 2,700 balls delivered. And yet somehow, despite all logic to the contrary, the game was not decided until the final ball was delivered…

It’s a great game, America.

Trust me. Trust BuzzFeed.

It’s time.

Join us.

Those of you that have been reading this blog for a while know that I first started following cricket during the 2007 World Cup. Every time I tell a dedicated cricket follower that fact, they respond with something along the lines of “and you didn’t run screaming back to baseball!?”

And, no, I didn’t.

In fact, I loved every second of it.

That probably had something to do with the fact that I didn’t know any better.

But I also think it has something to with the format itself.

As I mentioned briefly in a post from a couple days ago, the One Day International was my first format and it is how I learned the game.

I fell in love with cricket because of the ODI.

This morning as I was watching the overs tick over via the ball by ball on Cricinfo, I was reminded of those first few glorious mornings during the 2007 World Cup. It was a grand feeling then, and it was wonderful to be reminded of it again this morning. (By contrast, the 2011 World Cup did not make sense, timezone wise, which is why the memories did not come flooding back then.)

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But my feelings for the ODI are not simply nostalgia based, I really do think it is a phenomenal sporting contest. The strategies are endless and interesting: be aggressive but not too aggressive; play defensively but also offensively; and don’t forget about that net run rate.

It takes all day to get a winner, from late morning until late afternoon; and so it is a real test of endurance and stamina.

The problem, however, is that cricket is far too reliant on the format to fill out the schedule during longer tours.

Those endless 18 match tri-series are truly interminable, for instance – to the point where the matches lose all of their color, all of their character, all of their magic.

I love ODI cricket during a tournament, even if it is just the Champions Trophy (more on that in a second) but I find the format terribly boring outside of tournaments.

My recommendation, based on a Tweet from earlier today: play 50 over cricket at the domestic level, but only play it at the international level during the World Cup.

The obvious problem there is that players will not be conditioned to the format at the highest level and the games might not therefore be as entertaining, but I don’t think that would be the case.

Or maybe, during tours, just play one ODI and one T20 and five Tests.

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Someone else Tweeted, and I forget who, about how the Champions Trophy, while a bit of a joke in cricketing circles, mostly for how the ICC pimps it as the greatest thing since sliced bread, really is the perfect format for an ODI tournament. The eight best teams in the world, and it’s over in two and a half weeks.

And, I don’t know, I think I agree with that.

Of course, the Twitterer went on to mention that the ICC has indefinitely cancelled future Champions Trophies, which of course is par for the course: cancelling the one thing they are doing right.

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A bit of a rambling post, but here’s the gist: this should be a fun tournament; especially if today’s match was any indication of future play.

See everyone on Twitter.

The Champions Trophy Starts tomorrow and will be carried live here in the states over on ESPN3. I must admit, I am kind of excited.

If you missed it on Twitter, here is a link to ESPN3’s official press release regarding their coverage. You can also go check out my cricket viewing guide for the full schedule.

My prediction is as follows:

#ct13 prediction: NZ and ENG advance from group A, PAK and SA advance from group B. Then SA over NZ in the final. #youhearditherefirst

— Matt Becker (@limitedovers) June 3, 2013

And for a proper preview, I turn the site over to occasional guest writer, JP Daughtery:

ICC Champions Trophy Preview 2013

Group A

England

The hosts of the tournament, usually good in their home conditions but they just lost a home series to New Zealand.

Captain: Alastair Cook
Wicketkeeper: Jos Buttler/Jonny Bairstow
Best batsman: Alastair Cook; England’s captain has had a prolific last couple of years, especially in Test cricket, where he recently became England’s all-time leading century-maker. Can he transfer that form into the 50-over game?
Best bowler: James Anderson; One of the best classical swing bowlers in the world. Uses his great gift of being able to swing the ball late to pick up early wickets with the new ball.
X-Factor: Eoin Morgan; Morgan’s outrageously inventive stroke play has earned him a reputation as one of the best finishers in world cricket. Is possibly the only player in world cricket to play more ‘reverse’ shots than conventional shots.

Australia

Always one of the favorites, even though they are in a rebuilding phase and just got bowled out for 65.

Captain: Michael Clarke
Wicketkeeper: Matthew Wade
Best batsman: Michael Clarke; The Australian captain had the year of his life last year, scoring two double centuries against South Africa. Can he lead the Aussies to Champions Trophy 3-peat?
Best bowler: Mitchell Starc; The young Starc has wowed people the world over with his pace and bounce, and his ability to not be erratic like that other Mitchell. Expect the English conditions to be to his liking.
X-Factor: David Warner; This dynamite opener can give Australia a fast start, although he has not been in the best of form lately. Can he deliver when Australia needs him most?

Sri Lanka

A young and exciting team, bolstered with some veterans who are legends of the game.

Captain: Angelo Mathews
Wicketkeeper: Kumar Sangakkara
Best batsman: Mahela Jayawardene; A classical batsmen, uses more of placement than power in his shots. One of the few players to get 10,000 runs in both Tests and ODIs.
Best bowler: Lasith Malinga; ‘The Slinga’ had a relatively quiet IPL season until the final, when he demolished the Chennai top order. Expect him to be confident after that performance.
X-Factor: Dinesh Chandimal; This exciting young prospect is one of the new stars of the Sri Lankan batting order. He will be expected to play a big role, probably batting at number 3.

New Zealand

On a hot streak entering this Champions Trophy, having just beaten England in an ODI series.

Captain: Brendon McCullum
Wicketkeeper: Luke Ronchi
Best batsman: Martin Guptill; One of New Zealand’s brightest talents, he just made a scintillating match-winning 189 against England.
Best bowler: Tim Southee; One of the most underrated bowlers in world cricket, expect him to be near the top of the wickets chart in helpful English conditions.
X-Factor: Brendon McCullum; One of the most dangerous batsmen in world cricket, especially towards the end. Has terrific six-hitting ability.

Group B

South Africa

The favorites for the tournament, can they finally win a major trophy?

Captain/Wicketkeeper: AB de Villiers
Best batsman: Hashim Amla; Possibly the best batsman in world cricket at the moment. Uses exceptional touch in order to find the gaps and plays with an elegance matched only by a late 90s-early 2000s Tendulkar or Laxman.
Best bowler: Dale Steyn*; The best fast bowler in world cricket is ably supported by his partner in crime, Morné Morkel. Uses overwhelming speed and late swing to defeat batsmen.
X-Factor: David Miller; Stole the show in the IPL with some eye-catching displays of power, including a 38-ball 101.

*Editor’s noted: story was filed before Steyn’s injury was reported.

India

It is unknown how the world’s most supported team will fare after news of the spot-fixing scandal. Based in the evidence from the warm-up games, they will go far.

Captain/Wicketkeeper: MS Dhoni
Best batsman: MS Dhoni; Dhoni is quickly becoming the best ODI finisher of all-time, and with good reason. He uses his supple wrists to create incredible bat speed to hit sixes. Example: 2011 World Cup Final, over 48.2.
Best bowler: Umesh Yadav; Umesh is back in international cricket after recovering from a stress fracture in his back. Uses his good pace and seam movement to get wickets.
X-Factor: Dinesh Karthik; Karthik was Mumbai’s best batsmen during the IPL and has shown great form in the warm-up matches. Expect him to have a great tournament.

Pakistan

The most unpredictable team in world cricket. One day they tie Ireland, the next they beat South Africa. You never know quite what you’re going to get.

Captain: Misbah-ul-Haq
Wicketkeeper: Kamran Akmal
Best batsman: Mohammad Hafeez; Hafeez has been Pakistan’s most consistent performer over the past few years. Expect him to be the anchor against the two new balls.
Best bowler: Saeed Ajmal; The best spinner in world cricket, he possesses both a great off spinner and a well-disguised doosra.
X-Factor: Mohammad Irfan; The 7-foot-1 Irfan is a tough customer to handle as he gets lots of bounce. Expect him to be a handful for opposition openers.

West Indies

The winners of the most recent ICC tournament, the 2012 World T20, they are less comfortable on the ODI stage.

Captain: Dwayne Bravo
Wicketkeeper: Denesh Ramdin
Best batsman: Chris Gayle; The six-hitting behemoth was at his best in the IPL. Can he be a bit more patient in a longer format?
Best bowler: Sunil Narine; On his first visit to England, Narine struggled. He has come back a better bowler than he was and expect him to have success.
X-Factor: Kieron Pollard; This hard-hitting death-over specialist proved his worth in the IPL final, smashing 60 off 32 deliveries. He will hope to replicate that performance and go on to make more runs.

Predictions:

Group A:

1. New Zealand
2. Sri Lanka
3. Australia
4. England

Group B:

1. South Africa
2. India
3. West Indies
4. Pakistan

Semi-finals:

India over New Zealand
South Africa over Sri Lanka

Final:

India over SA.

You read right. Call me crazy, but remember, you heard it here first.

1. Despite continuing to give the impression that I think Test cricket is the only format worth a damn, I have a real soft spot for the One Day International. It was my first format; it is how I learned the game.

2. And despite continuing to say that I have no allegiance to any particular cricketing nation, I have had always had a secret sports crush on New Zealand’s cricket team.

And because of these two skeletons in my closet, New Zealand’s ODI series win over England, in England, was just simply a joy to watch happen. And now with the Champions Trophy set to start on Thursday, they are going to go into that tournament on a real high, and I think with a definite chance of reaching the knockout stage.

I think this because they didn’t just beat the fourth best ODI team in the world, they positively routed the fourth best ODI team in the world. A team that has not lost an ODI series at home since 2009.

New Zealand’s run rate was a run an over better than England’s and they only lost three wickets in 50 overs, while England was bowled out in just 44 overs.

It was a shellacking.

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Some might say that the win at Southampton and to a lesser extent the win at Lord’s, were all down to the blistering performances of Martin Guptill. Those same people will say it is dangerous to rely on one man in a team sport – and I will agree with those people. However, the Champions Trophy is not a season – it’s two and a half weeks and at most five matches. If Guptill can stay hot, and if the Kiwi attack can continue to hold teams to 250 or less, then that’s enough to win in a short tournament such as the Champions Trophy.

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The West Indies winning the T20 World Championship was a really big deal, and New Zealand winning the Champions Trophy, while it would not be as sexy, would be equally a big deal. World cricket desperately needs a strong bottom half of the table.

But even if they lose all three matches in the group stage, their series win over England is still a massive accomplishment – and really great for cricket.

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New Zealand’s first Champions Trophy match is Sunday against Sri Lanka in Wales. A winnable match, but not an easy one. First ball is at 04:30am Minneapolis time, which I think is around ten-thirty in the evening in Wellington. Not exactly prime viewing hours, but here’s hoping some of my pals on Twitter from New Zealand are up and watching at least part of it.

I bring up the time zone issue because I love how BIG the sport of cricket is. A team from an island in the Southwest Pacific Ocean and a team from an island in the Indian Ocean, playing each on an island in the North Atlantic.

Sri Lanka: 7,700 miles from home. New Zealand: 11,000 miles from home. First ball is 10:30am local time, 04:30am in Minneapolis, 10:30pm in Wellington, three in the afternoon in Colombo…

It’s a global game.

And while it is not the biggest trophy in cricket by any means, I will still watch. Because I like being a part of such a global undertaking…and because I secretly love the ODI; and because I secretly love New Zealand.

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