In its purest form it asks you to be objective; to offer bloodless analysis of events that have a visceral effect on those who are paying, not being paid, to watch it.
It, supposedly, doesn't allow for partisanship (though you only have to read the coverage of any Lions rugby tour to know the old rules don't necessarily apply any more).
In order to feel less, you strip the game bare. You reach for numbers. You maximise the importance of strike rates and economy rates and minimise the impact of things like guts and heart and, yes, luck. You do it because numbers are easy to make sense of; intangibles are impossible to quantify.
But then you get a team like the one that will be led onto Lord's by Kane Williamson and you sit back and, if you're anything like me, you think: "Man it'd be great to see them win."
There, I've said it.
Colin de Grandhomme celebrates the run out of MS Dhoni after a direct hit by Martin Guptill. Photo / Photosport
At any rate, it's pointless going to the numbers. Nothing about this campaign suggests they should be 100 overs away from doing something no other New Zealand team has done. If you're running your finger down the averages and aggregates column you take away Williamson's numbers and think how is it possible they've made this final? One-day cricket is a batsman's game, right?
Not New Zealand.
Yet there's something about this team that makes victory impossible to discount.
It's not fate, or destiny or anything corny like that.
It's more grounded than that. It's the way they all do enough in a game to make the sum greater than their parts. The way that the skipper will look around the field at vital junctures of a match and see 10 other guys jumping out of their skins to do their bit for the team, even if it's something as seemingly innocuous as turning a probable three into a two.
It's the way they read reports about how they're a team without superstars and take it as a badge of honour, not an affront.
They've won six games at this tournament; four of them have been heart-stoppers. On all four of those occasions – against Bangladesh, South Africa, West Indies and most recently India – players have reached out and dragged their teammates to the finish line.
Against Bangladesh it was the unlikely duo of Mitchell Santner and Lockie Ferguson squirting vital runs to get New Zealand home.
Against South Africa it was a Williamson masterclass punctuated by a rare but always timely six.
Against the West Indies it was the oft-profligate James Neesham bowling a nerveless 49th over and Trent Boult taking a balletic boundary catch.
In the semifinal, it was Boult and Matt Henry humbling India's top-order batting gods, Santner strangling their middle order and the previously downtrodden Martin Guptill running out the greatest finisher in ODI history.
So we get to another final and another game where, on paper, New Zealand have no chance. Let's not gild the lily: England have more pyrotechnic talent across their side.
Again, to look at the numbers is to look into an algorithm of certain defeat.
Captain Eoin Morgan is hugged by Joe Root in the rain after winning the Cricket World Cup semifinal against Australia. Photo / Photosport
New Zealand have one player who has scored a century – he has two. England have five with seven overall.
New Zealand have two players with more than 300 tournament runs; England have five.
New Zealand have collectively hit a paltry 161 fours and 21 sixes; England have 261 and 74 respectively.
England have 11 – 11! – batsmen who have scored at strike rates north of 90. New Zealand have three, and one of those is Ish Sodhi, who's faced four balls this tournament.
England's spinners have amassed 18 wickets between them to New Zealand's eight.
There is no statistic known to man that points in the direction of a New Zealand victory, except this: you have to be in a final to win a final.
Also, don't forget, "we" had no chance against India, too.
You might notice I've put quote marks around a word in the previous sentence. It's to highlight the worst of all journalistic sins: taking a side, claiming some sort of propriety over a team that just happens to represent the country on my passport.
Somewhere, behind a great Imperial typewriter in the sky, the ghosts of this profession past will be tut-tutting.
