Dancers work up the atmosphere ahead of the final © Getty Images Enlarge

Jonathan Agnew, the BBC cricket correspondent, delivered a stinging broadside at the way the ICC organised the World Cup, but heaped praise on the running of the ICC World Twenty20.

Speaking on the BBC's Simon Mayo programme, Agnew said that the ICC World Twenty20 was "a million, trillion times better than the World Cup" and joked that there were "even rumours that's still going on in some remote part of the Caribbean.

"This is how a one-day cricket tournament should be. People are actually welcomed into the grounds here, you're not strip searched by men with rubber gloves, you can take in whatever you like ... you can take in a flag of whatever size you want ... you can take a bottle of water in.

"They've treated people with a bit of respect, a bit of dignity and they're not ripping them off. They've charged them little to get in - two or three pounds will usually get you into a game - and what a surprise, the grounds are full and there's a tremendous atmosphere.

"I hope this has been a lesson learned by the ICC that one-day cricket tournaments are fantastic, they're colourful, they're vibrant, they're everything they should be," he concluded. "But unfortunately, the last two World Cups that the ICC have staged haven't been."