In 2003, my world was measured in laser-printed A4 sheets. I remember the smell of fresh ink and the static on the paper as I biked through my neighbourhood, sliding the ICC World Cup schedule into my friends’ mailboxes like a clandestine scout. We didn’t care about the ICC’s central revenue pool or the diplomatic standoff in the subcontinent. We cared about whether Sachin could handle Shoaib’s pace and if the underdog Kenyans could actually pull off a miracle. Fast-forward to 2008: the dawn of the IPL. I remember the frantic pleading with my parents to upgrade our DTH box because the free-to-air channels weren’t enough. We were desperate for every ball, every boundary. Back then, cricket felt like an inheritance-a pure, unadulterated joy that belonged to us, the fans.
Looking back, that desperation feels innocent, almost romantic. Cricket tournaments weren’t events you merely watched – they were things you prepared for. You counted days. You argued about squads before they were announced. You imagined match-ups long before a ball was bowled. The excitement lived not just in the games themselves, but in the waiting.
Somewhere along the way, that feeling changed.
As the T20 World Cup begins on Saturday, with twenty teams lining up across continents, cultures and cricketing histories, it should feel like one of those moments again – a global festival, noisy and unpredictable, full of stories yet to be told. Instead, the air around this tournament feels heavier than it should. The conversations leading into it haven’t been about young players chasing impossible dreams or first-time teams daring to believe. They’ve been about who isn’t playing whom, who didn’t travel, who pulled out, and why.
Cricket, once so good at uniting rooms full of strangers, now finds itself trapped in headlines it never wanted.
I think of how tournaments used to arrive. The World Cup didn’t knock politely – it barged into everyday life. School timetables were adjusted around matches. Families negotiated television access like it was a diplomatic summit. Neighbours who barely spoke to each other suddenly shared opinions on opening combinations and death bowling. Cricket had that power. It didn’t ask for permission; it demanded attention.
TOO MUCH OUTSIDE NOISE?
Today, ICC tournaments arrive preceded by press releases, clarifications, rebuttals and political footnotes. Long before the first over, the narrative is already crowded – not with cricketing possibilities, but with administrative explanations. It’s hard to build anticipation when the loudest voices are off the field.
The dominant storyline has been Pakistan threatening to boycott their match against India, Bangladesh’s withdrawal, and the familiar fog of geopolitics that seems to settle over cricket every time a global event approaches. It’s exhausting in its predictability. We’ve been here before. In fact, we’ve barely left.
The sheen hasn’t merely faded; it has been worn thin by a relentless cycle of off-field considerations that increasingly dictate the sport’s biggest moments. That reality became impossible to ignore during the 2023 World Cup in India, when the focus drifted uncomfortably away from the pitch.
The pattern continued with the 2025 Champions Trophy and the emergence of what came to be known as the “hybrid model” – a solution shaped less by sporting logic and more by geopolitical reality. With India unable to travel to Pakistan and the ICC determined to keep the tournament intact, matches were split across countries. The arrangement ensured cricket went on, but at a cost. The host nation was deprived of the traditional arc of a home tournament, including the symbolic right to stage a final on its own soil. What was gained in compromise was lost in the atmosphere, leaving the competition feeling fragmented despite the quality of cricket on offer.
Tensions, already simmering, spilt into the public eye during the 2025 Asia Cup in an episode that came to be labelled Handshake-gate. Following a high-pressure match in Dubai, the customary post-match exchange between India and Pakistan did not take place, with the Indian players citing solidarity with victims of the Pahalgam terror attacks. The image of one team leaving the field while the other remained briefly stranded became a talking point far beyond the boundary rope. It was an uncomfortable moment – not because it stemmed from personal animosity, but because it reflected how external realities can intrude even on cricket’s most enduring rituals. When geopolitics seeps into the smallest gestures, the game’s long-held ideals of civility and shared respect are inevitably tested.
The players themselves were not always insulated from this posturing either, and it was disappointing to see moments of on-field provocation from members of the Pakistan side, especially in a climate where sensitivities were raw following terror attacks that had claimed lives across the border.
The symbolism lingered long after the final whistle. When Mohsin Naqvi, Pakistan’s interior minister and the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board, walked away with the Asia Cup trophy on the night, it became another image loaded with meaning beyond cricket. What should have been a straightforward celebration of a continental tournament instead carried echoes of everything that had surrounded it – strained relations, heightened sensitivities, and the sense that administrators were inheriting responsibilities far larger than sport alone.
THE STORIES THAT WE DON’T HEAR
The tragedy of this circus is that it suffocates the most beautiful stories the 20-team expansion was meant to tell. While debates rage over hybrid models and security protocols, Italy are preparing to make their World Cup debut in a matter of days.
The Azzurri are a portrait of the modern game. Led by Wayne Madsen, their squad is stitched together by migration and opportunity – players like Crishan Kalugamage, who moved from Sri Lanka to Tuscany at sixteen, and Jaspreet Singh, a pacer born in Phagwara, Punjab, now spearheading Rome’s cricketing dreams. This so-called Italian miracle is built not in academies but in everyday lives: migrants, pizza-makers, school teachers carving out time to represent a country they chose as home.
These are the stories that should define a World Cup. So too should Nepal’s vibrant return, or the United States arriving eager to prove that their giant-killing exploits of 2024 were not a one-off. Instead, such narratives are reduced to footnotes, buried beneath headlines about retaliatory boycotts and security claims.
And it isn’t only the newcomers carrying something to prove. Even the established powers arrive here with unresolved questions. India enter as defending champions, but in transition – without long-time pillars of the format and led by a younger, fearless group intent on achieving something no team has before: defending a T20 World Cup crown on home soil.
Australia and England, sensing the sport’s centre of gravity shifting, are equally determined to show that experience, tactical clarity and big-game temperament still count.
South Africa and New Zealand once again inhabit familiar territory, branded as dark horses but quietly dangerous. For the Proteas, the memory of the 2024 final still lingers, fuelling a search for redemption. The Black Caps, anchored by calm leadership and adaptability, remain the side nobody wants to face when tournaments tighten and margins shrink.
And amid all the noise, Pakistan arrive carrying both expectation and defiance – former champions seeking to let their cricket speak, leaning on mystery spin and adaptability to navigate conditions designed to test patience and skill.
All of it is there: the ambition, the history, the fragile hope. The World Cup is overflowing with meaning – if only we allow ourselves to look beyond the distractions.
As these 20 nations converge on the host cities – from the electric hum of the Wankhede in Mumbai and the timeworn grandeur of Eden Gardens in Kolkata to the lush calm of Pallekele in Kandy – the World Cup unfolds as a journey through places that have long served as cricket’s beating heart.
CAN CRICKET FIND US AGAIN?
I think about the kid I was, handing out printed schedules like they were sacred – caring only about the cricket, nothing else.
Today’s kids deserve that too.
They deserve to grow up associating World Cups with excitement, not disclaimers. With anticipation, not anxiety. With cricketing heroes, not diplomatic statements.
As cricket prepares for its return to the Olympics in 2028, we are currently showing the world the exact opposite of the Olympic ideal. The Games are built on the premise that for two weeks, the world puts down its grievances to compete. Cricket, conversely, is dragging its grievances onto the pitch and letting them dictate the toss.
And yet, despite everything, hope still sneaks in. It always does with this game.
Because once the first ball is bowled, cricket has a habit of reclaiming space. T20 cricket, especially, doesn’t wait for permission. It moves fast. It disrupts plans. It creates chaos. A no-name batter can dismantle a giant in 20 minutes. A team written off before the tournament can suddenly find itself in the spotlight.
This World Cup will have upsets. It always does. There will be moments that remind us why we fell in love with this sport in the first place – a spell of fearless hitting, a last-over collapse, a catch that silences a stadium. Strong teams will still rise, because quality eventually asserts itself, but they will be tested along the way.
And maybe, just maybe, the cricket will grow loud enough to drown out everything else.
One can hope that future tournaments won’t begin with withdrawals and boycotts. That teams won’t be missing because of issues that have little to do with the game. That India and Pakistan, two nations whose cricketing rivalry once defined eras, will meet again where they belong – on the field, not in statements.
As cricket edges closer to its return to the Olympics, it feels ironic that the sport is struggling to unite in its own backyard. But perhaps this World Cup could be a reminder. A reset. A chance to let the game breathe again.
And somewhere, if we’re lucky, there’s a kid printing out a schedule, counting days, believing that a tournament can still feel like magic.
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