Australia capped off another successful home summer with the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in their own backyard, becoming the second team to do so after India, banishing the ignominy of not qualifying for the semi-finals when they hosted the tournament the last time in 1992. An Australia-New Zealand final created history and repeated some as well, but in the end it was a team led by Michael Clarke, who had been stunned at the start of the summer when they lost one of their own, and yet willed themselves to go the distance throughout an emotional four months.
Clarke signed off from ODI cricket with a cup in his hand and after making a significant contribution in the final, and passes on the baton to a young player whose rise throughout the summer has been phenomenal. Newer players have seamlessly merged into the system which means that Australia will be tough to beat even in four years' time when the party travels to England in 2019. And despite a slow start to their campaign, the team rose to its vaunted standards at the business end and made it count.
Cricket's showpiece event is set to kick off next week but it's as much about business as it is about the romance of the game. Sunday Times looks at everything that's different about this World Cup. The first cricket World Cup in 1975 was not even called the World Cup. With only 15 games and a new one-day format that everyone still saw as a "necessary evil" that followed Test matches, insurance-giant Prudential insisted as tournament sponsor that it be called the Prudential Cup.
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