This is a personal question, but when you visit a public convenience do you notice who made the ceramic furniture? Does your heart lift when you see “Armitage Shanks” on the cistern? Can you think about anything else for the rest of the day?

Bureaucrats at the cricket World Cup are worried that spectators will leave with only urinals on their mind, which hardly says much for their faith in the quality of the cricket. At grounds across the Caribbean, strips of black tape have appeared across the makers’ names on toilets, soap dispensers and hand dryers. Tape has also been put across fax machines, telephones and televisions. There has been so much black tape that one journalist wondered whether it was an odd way of marking the death of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach.

But no. The International Cricket Council (ICC), the body that runs the game, fears that sponsors (or “official partners”) will lose out with so many other brands about to grab the attention. There may not be an “official lavatory bowl partner”, but if a product has a name on it, it must be covered over. It is a ludicrous example of the way accountants and lawyers control the game. Never mind match-fixing, cricket has a bigger problem with legal money.

First, a foolish ticket-pricing policy has led to grounds being barely half-full. The banks of empty seats, even for a match such as the one on Tuesday between West Indies, the hosts, and Australia, the champions, is depressing, but understandable when the best seats cost $100 (£51) — the same as a seat at Lord’s — in a country, Antigua, where the average monthly salary is £460.

Spectators were also banned at first from taking water into the games. The ICC relented, but people still cannot take in alcohol. Of course, there is nothing stopping them from getting blotto on “official intoxicant partners” once inside.

Most insidiously, however, the ICC has ordered YouTube to remove match clips from its site. These are not highlights programmes or live feed that compete with television. They are short, often poor quality, segments of film, usually copied by ordinary people from television and lasting a couple of minutes. The ICC is also trying to ban spectators from publishing on the internet any footage taken on their mobiles.

This is utterly counter-productive. Some of the best moments of this tournament, such as Herschelle Gibbs’s six sixes in an over or the diving catch by a 19st Bermudian, have been watched by millions who do not otherwise have access to live coverage. They have won new supporters to the game in countries where cricket had minimal television exposure.

Reassuringly, as quickly as the clips are being taken down, fans are putting them back up again. The revolution will not be televised, but it may be won in cyberspace.

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