This paper focuses on the complex interplay of global and local forces during the Cricket World Cup in March and April 2007 (CWC 2007) in the West Indies, a group of former British colonies in the Caribbean. The analysis is located within a theoretical discussion of globalization and culture, and sport as an integral element of culture. In addition, I consider the transformation of the governance of sport worldwide in the last 150 years, including cricket, but particularly in relation to the more recent corporate globalization and commercial capitalism. How this process interacts with local histories and cultures, in this case as constructed and expressed through cricket in the West Indies, becomes the lens to understand and interpret the dynamics that shaped the operation, perception and outcome of CWC 2007. I demonstrate that the way in which the CWC unfolded reflects the interplay of simultaneous and multiple global and local forces, and highlights the role of sport as an aspect of popular culture through which cultural meanings and nationalist ideologies are expressed and displayed.
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