The best example was Afghanistan's famous one-wicket victory in Dunedin. Some of the cricket in this match was dreadful and if Afghanistan had folded in pursuit of 211 as looked likely when they were 97-7 this would have been quickly forgotten by anyone outside of spitting distance of the Firth of Forth. First Samiullah Shenwari and then Shapoor Zadran, whose slightly demented celebration will remain one of the indelible images of the Cup, clubbed their team to an improbable victory.
It helped, too, that it was played in the cosy confines of University Oval and not a vast expanse like the Gabba, which saw another cracking finish, this time Ireland's last-over win over the United Arab Emirates. The cavernous atmosphere, however, meant the game will never be remembered quite so fondly.
At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, you can almost throw the epic transtasman encounter into the bad cricket category - half of it anyway. A clearly bemused Michael Clarke described his side's batting as "extremely poor". Winners are grinners, so Brendon McCullum and Mike Hesson were never going to be so dismissive of New Zealand's effort with the bat, but it was just one more Mitchell Starc yorker away from being negligent. Would any of the 40,053 in the ground that day think less of the spectacle because of the technical delinquency? Of course not, it was sensational bowling and first-rate theatre.
Even the one-sided slaughters have usually given a gift or two to the spectator.
What an unfathomably interesting three weeks of cricket. There's something I never expected to write. Not until the final anyway.
The big teams were just meant to jockey for playoff positions, and all the little teams had to do was prove to the BCCI and its full-member lapdogs that they would be better off playing in a second-tier tournament in Kathmandu or Kandahar.
Bollocks to that.
6 gems from the World Cup so far
1. Aaron Finch gets dropped on zero and goes on to score 135 on the opening day as Australia destroy England.
2. Steven Finn takes the world's most pointless hat-trick on the same day.
3. Chris Gayle bursts out of a form slump by scoring 215, including 16 sixes, against Zimbabwe.
4. Tim Southee gives a near impeccable display of swing bowling en route to seven wickets against hapless England.
5. AB de Villiers scores 19 runs off the first 18 balls, then 143 off the next 48 he faces as he pastes the West Indies attack all over the SCG.
6. Kumar Sangakkara, 117, and Lahiru Thirimanne, 139, put on an unbeaten 212 second-wicket partnership as Sri Lanka make ridiculously easy work of chasing down hapless England's (wait, have I already used those words together?) 309 at the Cake Tin.
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