In reply to:
The International Council also runs a real World Cup, in which every nation represented on the ICC can compete - at last count well over 30. Most of these nations get knocked out in qualifying tournaments, so that the actual World Cup is still a Commonwealth reunion, except for the presence of The Netherlands at the last one.
And, if my memory serves me correctly, we won it.
Baseball only gets coverage when a player does something that might be of passing interest in Godzone - like the greatest number of home runs for the season or the world record or whatever. Same with American Football, really. We play basically the same game (rugby and rugby league), but without the reinforced helmets, the Kevlar armour and the ad breaks.
It's my dream to see the Netherlands beat Australia in a one-day cricket match. Or the team from Mauritius or Tristan da Cunha or even a scratch team from McMurdo Sound and Scott Base (to bring the thread in the general direction of back on course).
Even softball, which New Zealand are world champions in, doesn't get much coverage here. We are far more likely to be treated to two and a half solid hours of prima donna-saturated tennis matches, Master Tournament golf or (if we're really, really good and have eaten all our greens) lawn bowls. It took me a long time to realise that we were supposed to watch the wretched balls, not the grass growing.
