By Nick Bryant BBC News in Sydney

Such was the ludicrous manner in which the World Cup reached its conclusion that Australian fans got to celebrate victory twice.

Australian fans in Sydney watched the World Cup final in bars

They did so prematurely when bad light stopped play; then for real, after Andrew Symonds lobbed the ball into the darkness, when the game truly came to an end.

In the open-all-hours pub where I watched the final, the truth is that most will have only a hazy recollection of their beer-drenched jubilance.

The last time I heard 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' shouted with such an inebriated slur was just before closing time at the Munich Beer Festival.

Because of the time difference with the Caribbean, most of the World Cup was played while Australia was comatose.

On the east coast of the country, games started at 11 o'clock at night and ended around breakfast time and at times it felt like a phantom competition.

From an Antipodean viewpoint, organisers could not have come up with a more anti-social schedule. All but the 'green and gold' diehards, shift workers and insomniacs discovered the results of games on morning television and radio bulletins.

Newspapers have had a nightmare, since match reports appeared a full 24 hours after everyone back home already knows who won.

I live in England and I've been making a little too much of our victories! Aussie fan Luke Flaherty

No wonder the Sydney Morning Herald relied for its coverage on the cricket correspondent from its sister paper, the Melbourne Age, and The Australian appropriated a reporter from another Murdoch paper, The Daily Telegraph.

Up against rugby and Aussie Rules, cricket has rarely been the dominant story on the back page, let alone the front.

And while the Australian Tennis Open gets the �big screen� treatment in some of Sydney's most prominent public spaces, not so the Cricket World Cup - all part of the reason why the tournament failed to capture the national imagination.

The tournament was both the 'big snooze' and, for the Australian team, the 'big easy'.

Most fans in the pub where I watched the final, the Empire Hotel in Kings Cross, seemed to think the World Cup ranked only second in Australia's extraordinary season of excellence.

Fireworks lit up the sky in Barbados after Australia's win

"Winning the Ashes was really the be all and end all," said a bleary eyed Terry Evian. "But winning the double? We couldn't be happier. Go the Aussies."

Even if the present is golden, he fears that less lustrous times lie ahead.

"We're going to enter a bit of a slump - we won't be as strong as we are," he added.

"McGrath is going and Hayden and Gilchrist will probably retire over the next few months from one-day cricket. So we need to get some young guys into the one-day side. It's the seeding ground for our Test side."

Another fan, Luke Flaherty, was more upbeat about what the next few years might have in store and confidently predicted another World Cup win in 2011.

"There's a lot of talent coming up through the ranks," he said.

"I live in England, and I've been making a little too much of our victories, but it's a great time to be an Australian."

It will be party time again when Ponting and his men return home from the Caribbean.

Looks like it's a great time to be an Australian bar owner as well.