Strung across the exit at Cape Town international airport is the full blast of South Africa's welcome to the world. A huge banner says: "Dear Polly. We're bringing them in. It's up to you to send them back." Polly, more respectably known as Shaun Pollock, captain of South Africa, has been given no options. Everywhere he goes in this country of 44 million people, 52 ethnic groups, 11 official languages and a thousand discordant voices, he hears one chant. Over and over again, like a Zulu drum beat. Win the World Cup. Beat them Aussies. Them and, yes, all those other fellas who have turned up can play a bit, but wouldn't dare crash our party. Beat them all.

RAINBOW EFFECT: Dress rehearsal in progress for the Cup's opening night

India would understand instantly. It is a familiar four-yearly longing born of a large, diverse country's desperate desire to validate itself, to clamber onto a platform from where the world can see it flex its muscles, pump its fists and declare itself a champion. Then for a brief shining moment, everything-poverty, crime, corruption, disparity, old hatreds and broken friendships-can be forgiven and forgotten. Like India in 1983, South Africa has been there before with victory in the 1995 World Cup Rugby. One taste of those times is fatal because the hunger then lasts a lifetime. Pollock understands what is happening around him now, "It's the pressure of a proud sporting nation." The rest of the cricket world has tied itself into complex knots over match boycotts and counter-boycotts in Zimbabwe and Kenya, but nothing throws the swing off South Africa's step. A vendor at Newlands stadium chirrups, "Watch our boys, they're sharp, eh. Those Aussies-arrogant, arrogant." Hours before the opening night, there are only two teams in the World Cup.

Those Australians had barely touched down before they were mouthing off. Shane Warne said his team had a mental edge over the hosts and pace bowler Glenn McGrath said the defending champions would sail through six weeks undefeated. In more sanguine parts, they would have waved away all that hot air, but newspapers here are full of the opinions of psychologists on how to put the Australians under pressure. All other teams have been given as much of a chance of surviving six weeks as an ice-cube in hell. There's a passing nod at Pakistan (described as the "Brazil of cricket"), renewed respect for the West Indians (a good bet at 20-1 odds) and some general compliments thrown the way of New Zealand's professionalism. Begging your pardon but er ... how about the bread basket of the game, the country with the richest board and the largest supporter base of all? In the words of an irreverent columnist, "India's batting is one of the most fearsome ... in parts of the world. My trusty black book tells me not these parts."

SEA CHANGE: A group of children prepare for the opening ceremony (above); Indian cricketers on the Durban beachfront that opened to non-whites only in 1992

Coming in the wake of World Cup hype that touched new levels of lunacy in India, brutal critique can often be blessed relief. Javagal Srinath, in his final World Cup, sounds more like an evangelist when he says, "Deliverance is everything." In other words, winning the damn thing is all. The Indians are grateful to be clear of attention in their base in Durban where they have trained in anonymity, without causing a ripple, let alone the usual civil disturbance. The media access session drew a thin crowd of about 30. Sourav Ganguly (already nicknamed "Superior") found himself at the bottom of the heap in a survey of World Cup captains by South African Sports Illustrated. He scored 21/40 across four categories: tactical ingenuity, sense of humour, media management and ability under pressure. This when the win-loss record of the No. 1 captain on that list, New Zealander Stephen Fleming, stands at 45-68. Ganguly's is superior at 43-36. Deliverance will no doubt ultimately settle this.

For cricket, this World Cup will see the hard and bouncy wickets even things out between bowlers and batsmen in the first 15 overs and the tempo of an innings may be required to be changed. But that is all in the future. At the moment, unlike the tepid 1999 World Cup in England, a country outside the subcontinent is showing it can sing modern cricket's hallelujah chorus with great gusto. Some churches will even televise games after Sunday mass with Hansie Cronje's brother talking cricket and Christianity between innings.

NEXT MEN IN: Sachin Tendulkar (left) and Ganguly watch India play a warm-up game

Cape Town's local buses ferry volunteer workers from across the Western Cape; there's no destination sign on the front of the bus, all it says is "Cricket". The World Cup will be South Africa's biggest live sporting event ever with an estimated audience of 1.4 billion people. The income from the event is estimated to reach R300 million (Rs 171 crore) without including earnings from tourism. At every turn, in airports, shops, bars, restaurants and even inside packets of potato chips, the World Cup has taken over South Africa. It threatens to swallow Polly's Boys whole. There is, as pace bowler Allan Donald told India Today, "no place to hide". Veteran of three World Cup campaigns, each more heart-breaking than the previous one, Donald says, "It's an emotional event, it can either destroy a player or lift him up."

In slow ways, this large, complex, chaotic country is changing. Today, as they jog down the Durban beachfront undisturbed, few Indian cricketers realise that men and women of their colour were not permitted in that area as recently as three months before the first Indian tour of 1992.

The cricketers couldn't care about white alienation. Jonty Rhodes is the most recognised South African athlete in the country across all population groups. As opener Gary Kirsten told India Today, "What's happened in these years is incredible. To walk down the street and have black people walk up and wish you luck for the World Cup ... that just blows me away." In ways beyond runs and wickets, this cricket World Cup promises to push the boundaries of the possible.

THE VENUE TEST Political games ON GUARD: Fleming (left) and Hussain Before the cricket had even started, political games were on at the World Cup over the security situation in Zimbabwe and Kenya. Not just the South African Board but the South African Government too discovered that the area between the rock and the hard place was getting smaller and the room for manoeuvre shrinking. President Thabo Mbeki presided over the first meeting of the African Union in Addis Ababa whose long-term goal is the setting up of a free trade zone in Africa on the lines of the EU; to that end, isolating Zimbabwe-a country which has more degrees per capita than any other on the continent and a large percentage of skilled population-is not regarded as smart politics. When asked whether the Cup organisers should not question Zimbabwe about its internal security situation, Ali Bacher snapped, "I'm a cricket administrator, not a politician." He will have to somehow be both. The decision on a change of venue requested by England was rejected by the ICC Technical Committee after a four-hour meeting late on Thursday. Former Zimbabwe cricketer Neil Johnson, who gave up playing for his country when he fled the Mugabe purge, told India Today, "Instead of this being a big occasion for us, this is going to set back Zimbabwean cricket a long way. If no one plays, what's in it for the boys now?"