Credit where credit's due for ICC

It's not often the ICC gets something right but the game's governing body hit the mark with its World Twenty20 tournament.

After the debacle that was the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, this year's Twenty20 extravaganza, which produced a fairytale finish, was an excellent hangover cure.

For starters, nobody died; there were no scandals - New Zealand's suspicion of the legitimacy of Pakistan quick Umar Gul's reverse swing was the only thing resembling the whiff of one; and all the headlines were made for on-field deeds.

On-field giant Australia was gone before the tournament saw out its first weekend, which probably explained why the event received so little publicity back home.

Defending champion and off-field behemoth India limped out in the Super Eights, as did host nation England, which was cruelled by its own weather. Of the four semi-finalists only South Africa would have been confidently penned in to be there by experts prior to the event.

Where the ICC World Twenty20 prospered was the format of the tournament.

Perhaps, and we don't use that word light-heartedly, it learnt from the Caribbean catastrophe in 2007 when 16 teams playing 52 games in 47 days helped write cricket's own 40 days and 40 nights entry into the bible.

With 27 matches in 17 days, there was never going to be any time to bemoan failures.

It didn't matter if one game was awful. There'd be another starting almost straight away.

The nature of Twenty20 cricket also lends itself to the greater possibility of upsets than the 50-over game.

Games can be won and lost literally on a stroke of good luck. Patience - a virtue in Test cricket - gets you nowhere other than behind the required rate.

It's doubtful whether the Dutch would have beaten England in a game lasting 100 overs or that Australia could not have conjured a way out of jail in either of its matches against Sri Lanka and the West Indies had it not been so short.

The fans love it. Instead of waiting for a day for a result, they get one in three hours - and there's still time to sneak in a cheeky one at your favourite watering hole on the way home before tucking the little tacker into bed.

Pleasantly, bowlers became match-winners rather than fall guys who were shot out of cannons into the next postcode.

The final, though one-sided, was still a highlight purely for the significance of the result.

It featured Pakistan and Sri Lanka, whom less than four months ago were victims of a terror attack in Lahore.

Not surprisingly, nothing was left to chance with security in the hotel used by both teams, and also Australia.

Reportedly, any hotel guest stepping off a lift parked on the same floor as the Sri Lankans and Pakistanis were greeted by burly men carrying weapons to match.

That Pakistan, which has lately become a pariah on the world stage, prevailed not only gave its cricket-starved supporters back home something to cheer about but world sport one of its better feel-good stories of the year.

Unfortunately, Pakistan cannot call itself world champion for 12 months as the next World Twenty20, an event supposedly staged biennially, will be held next April in the Caribbean.

We've all heard about the goose that laid the golden egg. The ICC has that goose. Trouble is it's also been one in the past.