Tuesday, October 2, 2001 What a tear-streaked few days it has been for Australian sporting institutions. First rugby league warlord Mal Meninga's political career ended before it began when, moments into a radio interview launching his candidacy, he broke down with the immortal sign-off: "I'm buggered. I'm sorry. I have to resign." Then our greatest sports commentator Bruce McAvaney – Richie Benaud's gravitas meets Bill Lawry's gibberishness – laid down his mike for the last time after Brisbane beat Essendon in Saturday's Australian Rules grand final.

But don't fret: another Australian sporting institution returns this weekend. I am talking, of course, about the competition that changes its name more often than England's selectors change their minds about Graeme Hick. The competition that has been sponsored by a soft-drink manufacturer, a toiletries firm, a hamburger chain and three insurance companies. The competition that even the most trainspotterish of Australian cricket fans, greybeards who can recite Julien Wiener's career batting average backwards, could not give a toss about.

Yes, raise your glasses to Australia's domestic one-day competition, which this year is calling itself the ING – as in excruciatING, presumably, not exhilaratING – Cup, but which we, for the sake of simplicity and out of sympathy with Australia's ailing farmers, will call the Old McDonald's Cup.

I mention Wiener because his glorious unbeaten 108 for Victoria is one of only four lasting memories I have from two decades of following Australian domestic one-day matches. That was way back in 1981-82, when the Old McDonald's Cup was just the McDonald's Cup, and when said fast-food outlet used to print glossy posters of the three international teams each summer and hand them out with their cheeseburgers. Bliss.

My other recollections are of Rick McCosker and Johnny Dyson running up 253 for the first wicket against South Australia, Robbie Kerr and Andrew Courtice – bet you never thought you'd hear that name again – batting and batting and batting for Queensland at the MCG, and Greg Matthews's hair transplant flying off after he hit roly-poly Tom Hogan for four sixes in four balls. (OK, I made up the last one.) And that's it.

The ING Cup, named after the parent company of old sponsors Mercantile Mutual Insurance, is the competition's seventh name in 32 years – one more than England's unloved, unwatched Sunday League – making it indisputably the most meaningless tournament in world cricket.

How is anyone expected to care about a competition with such a profound identity problem? Or one that has such a penchant for encouraging mediocrity? Consider, for example, the bit-part trundlers and second-rate seamers who make up the top ten wicket-takers in domestic one-day history: Tom Moody, Scott Prestwidge, Paul Wilson, Brendon Julian, Jo Angel, Brad McNamara, Mike Kasprowicz, Kade Harvey, Ken MacLeay, Ian Harvey.

It is hard, too, to care about a competition that does not even care about itself – when the 1982-83 final was rained off it took seven months to reschedule. Or one that two years ago gave Brad Haddin $140,000 for hitting a six into the sponsor's advertising board and only $75,000 to WA for winning the entire event. Or one that introduces absurd rules changes for the sake of change – witness the pointless ongoing experiment with 12-man sides.

Equally absurd has been the fleeting embrace of teams from New Zealand and the Australian Capital Territory. The Kiwis won twice and finished runners-up once but were then banished forever, while the Canberra Comets almost made the semi-finals in 1998-99 only to myopically be booted back into the cricket wilderness a year later.

Yet expansion is where the future lies. Teams from the ACT and Northern Territory would immediately generate greater interest. Better still, why not create a 12-team tournament featuring two New Zealand sides, an academy team and a composite East-Asia Pacific side, comprising the best players from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Brunei, Singapore and other emerging powers?

The competition could be held in one city over a fortnight when the Test players are available. The teams could split into three round-robin groups, with the top two from each pool progressing to the quarter-final knockout stage. Standards would be reasonably high, interest widespread and a few people might even turn out to watch.

Failing that, the future looks glum for an Australian institution that is deeply unpopular, strapped for cash and struggling to get off the ground. What odds on the Ansett Cup next summer, anyone?

Chris Ryan is managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age. His column appears every Tuesday.

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