1966 World Cup glory

I have already predicted that cricket would struggle to compete against the football festival in Germany and, as I walked around Bath searching for a pub that would be showing the England v Sri Lanka Twenty20 contest, my worst fears were confirmed.

Wall-to-wall Sweden v Paraguay was all that was on offer.

As well as sport's biggest global competition, England also hosted the first world tournament in limited-overs cricket in 1966.

The 1912 triangular tournament, featuring Australia, England and South Africa, was the first-ever competition featuring three teams, but was of the longer format.

The 1966 version was also a threesome, with a World XI joining the touring West Indians, for an end-of-season round-robin contest at Lord's.

The tournament was sponsored by Rothmans, who were already associated with one-day cricket by supporting travelling International Cavaliers contests against county sides on a Sunday, and was billed as the World Cup.

The competition took place against the backdrop of discussion about how to make cricket appeal to a wider public. Falling attendances at county matches was causing serious concern.

In 1947, the number who paid for admission totalled two million, but, within a decade, that number had dropped to 1,200,000 and, by 1966 to just over 500,000.

The then Times cricket correspondent bemoaned the lack of variety, skill and inventive captaincy on offer at the average cricket match. The England team was also experiencing one of its too-regular cyclical downturns.

In 18 home Tests, against West Indies, Australia and South Africa, over the previous four years, England had won only twice and, for the first time on record, England in 1966 had three captains in the same season, MJK Smith, Colin Cowdrey and Brian Close.

Desperate times allow for innovation and, if cricket was to compete with football, it had to offer something to the millions basking in the success of the shorter and easier to play game. That would be the one-day contest.

England won the 1966 World Cup by winning both of their games, with each of the players rewarded with £100 in prize money. Interest, though, was patchy and three days of cricket featuring a wealth of world talent only persuaded 13,000 to pay at the turnstiles.

And, although the series was covered by the BBC, it had to share airtime with racing from Goodwood.

The competition was repeated the following year, but came to an end once John Player moved onto the scene to support the newly established one-day Sunday League.

John Player would only plough their funds into cricket if they were guaranteed television coverage. The BBC was happy with showing the star-studded Cavaliers games, so the Test and County Cricket Board banned their players from competing in them.

MJK Smith spoke of how the players enjoyed playing the one-day game and that they were enthusiastic for it to continue.

Forty years on we can point to these developments, which were possibly a consequence of the football tournament, as the advent of commercialism in cricket, but England's inability to master the subtleties of the one-day format may mean that the 1966 World Cup may be their last for some time.