
The first ball that Mitchell Marsh faces from Glenn Phillips is a full toss, and it seems to float in the air asking to be hit. Marsh watches David Warner and Travis Head hit many balls better than this one for an hour. As the ball reaches Marsh’s swinging arc, the crowd waits for him to send it flying. Instead, Marsh merely propels forward and bats the ball to short midwicket. Before a ball was bowled in the World Cup, pundits questioned the death of one day cricket as the rise of T20 cricket created a new form of cricket that many didn’t like. The game of one-day cricket remains beautiful despite this. T20 cricket fails because it attempts to remove time and reduce cricket to its essence, while time itself is the essence of cricket. The mid-overs of a one-day match, with the space to think, hold the beauty of cricket and are what makes the game meaningful. Cricket fans deserve the time spent watching the sport to come to know the players.