Sticky wicket Oil, geopolitics and cricket collide in Guyana but players are shortchanged

In 1899 an international tribunal controversially settled a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana in favour of the British, and 125 years later Liam Dawson is walking back to the Providence Stadium pavilion, run out for a duck after failing to slide his bat into the crease.

- Jonathan Liew

Obviously we've stripped out a little intermediate context. But these two events are ephemerally connected. What do you mean, you haven't been following Hampshire's progress in the Global Super League Twenty20 in Guyana? It's been playing live on YouTube every night. Stars such as Moeen Ali, Carlos Brathwaite and Shan Masood are featuring. At the time of writing, meanwhile, Dawson has faced five balls in the competition, scored one run and been dismissed three times.

Hampshire will probably struggle to make the final. The standard of cricket has been fine, even if the level of effort could charitably be described as mixed. The standout bowler has probably been the 45-year-old Imran Tahir. But none of this really matters, because in a way the GSL isn't really a cricket tournament at all. It's cricket as the honey trap in a much wider plot of geopolitics, Russia and India, hard power and big oil.

Almost a decade ago, oil was discovered off the coast of Guyana, transforming overnight the fortunes of this sparsely populated, thickly forested tropical South American nation. According to the World Bank, it is the fastest-growing economy in the world. There has been lavish investment in infrastructure, in schools and hospitals, roads and tourism. Big news for Guyana. And quite a big problem at its western frontier.