There is a family on the beach. The father bowls. His son smashes the ball into the ocean. The dad goes off to get the ball. The son smashes a few more. The daughter patiently waits for her chance to bat. It is a portrait of a cricket country.

By 1992 Australia had firmly become the Australia you are now aware of. Arrogant, self-centred, self-fulfilling, and harsh, but fair. When the World Cup arrived that summer, Australia were the team that had led the way in One Day International (ODI) cricket; they evolved it, coloured it, mastered it, fielded it, and were the holders of the world cup.

In the tournament, Australia were rubbish. Now, Australia, like other arrogant nations (India and the US come to mind), can often turn off at this point. They might pretend they like the sport and contest, but they actually like winning. And Australia had just really worked that out. They could win. They could win the America’s Cup, Olympic medals and pretty much anything they cared about.

The 1992 World Cup should have been a disappointment, a disaster, a waste of time. But it is the king of world cups, and even though Australia didn’t beat England, New Zealand, South Africa or Pakistan, and didn’t even make the semi-finals, they are remembered fondly, even in Australia. Maybe especially so.

The cricket was great, the uniforms were cool. Imran Khan became a god. Martin Crowe was cool. This was in many ways the peak of cricket in Australia.

The 1992 Australia was working-class. We had no cable TV. Sport was our religion. Summer was our time off. Cricket was at the centre of all of this. Cricket clubs were a part of our social structure. This wasn’t a game for posh people, or city folk; everyone played cricket. Anyone could join a cricket club, or play on the beach, or in a backyard. Cricket was just there.

There was beer, there was sun, there was cricket. This was summer.

Whole towns and suburbs centred on their local cricket club. If you were a woman, and there was no women’s team, you scored, made teas and created social committees. If you were a man who didn’t play, you sat on the sideline with a drink and heckled the more athletic men. The children played in the parks around the grounds. After the games, you drank and ate at the club. It was the centre of the world. The radio or TV had the cricket on, if not for a Test or ODI, then a Sheffield Shield or McDonald’s Cup match.

Even in 1992, this was starting to fade. Multiculturalism changed things first. It improved the country, and many families new to the country played cricket, as names like Krejza, Katich, Starc and Kasprowicz suggest. But many more didn’t. Cricket is handed down through families, a new Greek or Vietnamese dad has no knowledge of cricket.

Then there was the reality that life had changed in Australia. By the late 1990s, there were just other things to do that weren’t sport. If you played or watched sport every weekend, people asked why you were wasting your weekend. The suburbs were full of shopping centres and multiplexes. Brunch cafés popped up. Holiday homes became more popular. Cable TV gave us more sports, more everything, more options. Sport became the background, not the centre. By the year 2000, not attending a wedding because you were playing sport was no longer socially acceptable.

The rural areas took a bit longer. They held on to the cricket, footy and netball club traditions as long as they could. But even they couldn’t hold on. The country areas have men’s sheds, gentlemen clubs, carpentry courses, book nights, line dancing and sex-toy parties. Going to the cricket club on Saturday night became harder and harder.

With all this happening, the Australian team was enjoying the best of times. They won three more world cups. They created the myth of the baggy green. They produced champion bowlers. They won Tests on a seemingly never-ending loop. But cricket didn’t get bigger in Australia.

There were more people and more spoils to be spent; Australia was no longer working-class, but middle-class. But cricket stayed in the same position, all the wins in the world couldn’t change the fact that Australia had changed. The administrators pinned their hopes on a team that many didn’t always feel represented them.

Australia wasn’t the same sort of cricket nation any more. Cricket was just another product and event. A summer distraction. On the telly for Boxing Day, the radio as you travelled to your holiday destination, and on your phone app as you came back from the fishing.

My family was a cricketing family. My grandfather saw the Don. My dad and uncles all played for the same club. They were all decent cricketers. They ran my cricket club, with my aunties. It was the main part of our lives. But I’m the only one left playing in my family, or with cricket as a major part of my life.

My two eldest cousins haven’t played in over a decade. One barely goes to the cricket; the other, never. My cousin, whom I learnt cricket with, doesn’t play any more. He has three children, and would feel like he was wasting time with his family by playing cricket. He goes to the cricket, but not that often, and hasn’t decided whether he will be going for any World Cup games.

After they retired from playing, both my uncles moved on from the game. One found arthouse films, photography and music; the other stayed with watching footy, but added the Rotary Club and mini-trains. My dad likes golf more than cricket now. My mum went 10 years without watching a cricket game after I stopped playing.

All of them know the latest scores, all watch a bit on the telly and talk about it with friends. But that’s how they follow it.

That is the Australia this World Cup will be played in.

But cricket won’t be beaten. That family on the beach is watching the Big Bash on TV. In fact, due to a lack of virtually any alternatives in summertime, so is everyone. In pubs, instead of repeats of American sitcoms and warm-up tennis tournaments, there is the Big Bash. In tiny pubs they talk about whether Gurinder Sandhu is good enough to bowl for Australia. Even in the glory days of Australian cricket, no one knew who domestic cricketers were.

When I see one of my uncles at a family event, before we could even say hello, he was telling me about his theory on how Australia could get Virat Kohli out. Then he paused, shook my hand, said hello, and went back into a full mime of how he thought the dismissal would work.

At a wedding I go to, there is no phone reception. Australia are trying to bowl India out on the last day at Sydney. No one can find a TV, or a radio, they all huddle around smartphones hoping the Espncricinfo app will work. When someone’s phone works, the score is passed around the wedding. There is a groan that passes around the ceremony as India hold on. Everyone puts their phones away.

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On a lonely highway, a bat commemorating Phil Hughes. Photo: Jarrod Kimber

This World Cup might be played in a format Australians no longer like, and include cricket nations they have no interest in, and it won’t ever bring back the magic of 1992. But this is still a cricket nation, even if it has changed.

The son on the beach is eventually bowled by dad. The daughter starts batting. The dad bowls to her and she switch-hits him into the ocean.

It’s still a portrait of a cricket country, just a different one.

Jarrod Kimber is a global writer at Espncricinfo.

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