Bacher's crusade wins first half of long battle to promote game in black Africa

After only the first two weeks, it is fair to say that this World Cup is the greatest cricketing jamboree yet to be organised. From the moment this year's competition was awarded to South Africa, it has been an event with two purposes, which the organisers have successfully managed to dovetail into a single thread.

First, the South Africans were determined to make this the World Cup to end all World Cups in order to show what they can do, and thus far no one would disagree that they have achieved their objective. The only question mark hangs over the need to include as many as four amateur sides of necessarily lesser ability than the Test playing countries.

The second purpose of this World Cup was to provide a glittering worldwide platform for a formidable display of African unity and nationalism. The new South Africa is not yet 10 years old and naturally wants to grab any passing world stage that comes its way. It is perhaps dangerous to write this before the final ball has been bowled, but the organisation has been outstanding. They are hoping that football will soon bring its World Cup to the Cape.

Dr Ali Bacher, South Africa's last captain in the days when apartheid was in full swing, has been the man at the helm. When South Africa was prevented from competing on the world's sporting fields because of their abhorrent policy of apartheid, Dr Bacher threw away his stethoscope and set about preserving the game within the Republic by masterminding rebel tours. These left behind a nasty taste even if they helped his purpose.

When Nelson Mandela was released and apartheid was dismantled, Dr Bacher began the job of rebuilding South African cricket. He has made enemies along the way, but he is the most determined of men and a brilliant organiser.

He is no longer running South African cricket, but the World Cup became his baby. One of his hopes was that it would spread the gospel around his own country, to create a new awareness of the game throughout South Africa and most particularly within the black community.

He has spread the matches all over the country as well as taking some to Zimbabwe and Kenya but with consequences that he, above all others, might have foreseen at the outset. One can only wonder if, while drawing up the original plans, he felt the guiding hand of Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, on his shoulder.

South Africans generally have welcomed the World Cup although they have not enjoyed South Africa's defeats by the West Indies and New Zealand for, unsurprisingly, home success is so important for their sense of self-identity. While the game's predictable parishioners have done Bacher proud, the impact on the rest of the country has not been huge. Opinion polls have suggested that 60 per cent of the population are less than engrossed. Only time will tell whether the word has been flowing into the African townships and across the neighbouring borders.

A black taxi driver in Johannesburg told me how delighted he had been by New Zealand's victory at the Wanderers for he was still unable to forgive white South Africa for the country it had created when he was young. Dr Bacher is up against the legacies of the immediate past. It is remarkable, though, that one hears so few complaints of this nature. The apparent forgiveness by the black community of so much of the abject viciousness and cruelty of the apartheid years remains one of the most remarkable features of the new, vibrant South Africa.

Cricket will surely continue to stretch its boundaries, but it will be a gradual process. As Dr Bacher must know full well, there is no magical wand that can be waved to achieve this overnight. Nonetheless, his World Cup will have played an important role – in the townships of South Africa as well as in the ears and eyes of aspiring cricketers around the world who hope that one day they too will be a part of a World Cup and all that it stands for.

If, even now, South Africa could lift both themselves and the World Cup, the effects might be more dramatic than even the good doctor hopes.