What does the future hold for cricket?

The name Cameron Delport might not be immediately familiar, but his exploits last week could mean more for the future of cricket than the electrifying events of the World Cup final. Delport is a burly, well-inked British-South African from Durban, and a few days ago he smacked 129 off just 49 balls to steer Essex to victory over Surrey in their T20 Blast encounter at Chelmsford. More specifically, at the Cloudfm County Ground; once the home of Graham Gooch, Keith Fletcher and Nasser Hussain, now happily sponsored by a facilities management business. (I don’t really know what that means either, but it’s what the ‘fm’ stands for. Not a radio station.)

Delport is now one of those itinerant T20 players of no fixed abode, but plenty of air miles. At the last count he had played for, to list a few: KwaZulu-Natal, Sydney Thunder, Trinidad and Tobago, Lahore, the Dhaka Dynamites, Kolkata Knight Riders, Guyana Amazon Warriors and Islamabad Unite, not to mention the Paktia Panthers in the Afghanistan Premier League, which was new to me. From Chittagong to Chelmsford, Delport and the myriad other well-travelled T20 mercenaries will be pouring into England next summer for the new The Hundred tournament. The future for T20 Blast is unclear and the 50-over contest looks set to be downgraded, so quite where this will leave cricket remains to be seen; but that feelgood explosion which came with England’s bizarre win over the Kiwis may be a long time coming again.

The Russians have decided not to recognise cricket as a sport: they might have a point after the World Cup win which became something like It’s a Knockout! as Lord’s was treated to the remarkable sight of elderly MCC members swaying their arms while ‘Sweet Caroline’ blared out of the speakers.