Good riddance to the World Cup. Like the rest of Australia’s cricket lovers, I sat watching the television early yesterday morning amazed at how the sport’s showpiece event turned into an absolute farce.

What should have been remembered as another great triumph for Australia’s cricket team will instead be remembered for the cock-ups by umpires Aleem Dar and Steve Bucknor, third umpire Rudi Koertzen and match referee Jeff Crowe, who simply did not follow rules that should be ingrained in their heads.

Never again should these four be in charge of any match of any importance. If that trio had of had its way, the World Cup final would have been decided sometime early this morning with the Australians rolling their arms over for 18 balls against a Sri Lankan side that needed way too many runs for victory – a complete anticlimax.

What we got instead yesterday was an almost complete anti-climax. When the Sri Lankans left the field for bad light, that was it, the game was over. Sri Lanka had faced the minimum 20 overs required for a result to be achieved and there was no need to bowl those final three.

Dar’s signalling of a wide when the players were forced to return, and were trying to finish the match off as quickly as they could because it was becoming impossible to see, just confirmed how out of touch this group of officials was. Not that we should be surprised that there was a farcical end to this tournament because it’s been the worst World Cup that I’ve followed.

What made me scoff loud enough to wake up the neighbours was when the ICC chairman stood up at the presentation ceremony and declared this to be “a great World Cup”. It ran too long, had only a few decent matches, was poorly attended and produced a fizzer of a final, apart from Adam Gilchrist’s century. Thank goodness it’s finished.