QUITE what can be gleaned from England’s 241-run demolition of Bermuda is anyone’s guess, but it was a nice gentle opener to a marathon tournament.
Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen and Jamie Dalrymple were all the runs, while the bowlers were efficiently ruthless in their exposure of the frailties of Bermuda’s batting line-up.
There is much debate as to whether teams like Bermuda should be competing in the World Cup.
However the fact that such a wonderful sport is only played at Test level by ten nations is something that has to change for the benefit of the game’s future. And, the only way that countries like Bermuda, Canada and Ireland will get better is by playing against the Test nations.
There was a time when Sri Lanka were considered whipping boys before they shocked the world and won this very competition in 1996.
If the ICC are serious about raising the profile of the game globally, then the associate countries should get a crack at playing the best.
If Bermuda hadn’t been playing cricket against England yesterday, we might never have been treated to watching heavyweight all-rounder Dwayne Leverock on a cricket field.
Leverock has to be the heaviest player in the tournament, weighing in at an imposing 19 stones. Being such a big man, Leverock doesn’t waste his time thundering in and propelling the ball down at the speed of lightning. That would probably have woken up one of the local volcanoes.
Instead, he ambles in and turns his arm over at a very pedestrian pace. However, that pedestrian pace was more than good enough to pick up the wickets of England dangermen Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood.
I decided I wanted to find out more about this massive character, and there is an Internet web-page dedicated to him that fondly remembers the time he blasted his maiden half-century against Holland in the ICC Intercontinental Cup.
The web page reckoned: “Leverock enjoyed his time at the crease so much that he expressed dissent when he was given out lbw, and was consequently fined for the action.”
I would not have liked to be the man that took the money from big Dwayne’s wage packet, and neither would I like to be a local criminal when he returns to his day-job as a policeman.