TRYING to follow the cricket World Cup has made me seriously question the quality of my comprehensive education.

I mean, sporting knockout competitions should be the easiest thing in the world to understand.

You start with x number of teams, they play a game in the first round, the winners go through, the losers go out and the same thing happens in subsequent rounds until you get to the last two teams who meet in the final. Simple but effective.

Then we have the current World Cup which has decided in typical cricket tradition that this tried, tested and much loved sequence of events does not possess those two crucial elements cricket competitions need - complication and boredom.

So we have two league phases right through to the semi-final when a true knockout phase finally kicks in. And just to take as much competitiveness and excitement out of the tournament as possible teams carry their first league phase achievements through to the second phase.

Hence interest in games has been subdued until the semis.

But that's nothing new to cricket which still persists with a four-day Championship format which is so dull it is lucky to attract one man and his dog to games.