Many of us in North America, in particular, have no expertise in various major sports competitions in other parts of the world. But we have a vague idea of them. The Copa Libertadores is big in South America. The UEFA Champions League is huge in Europe. So is the Euro Cup. The specifics may be hazy, but we know they exist.

But I have here what most certainly is the biggest sports event on the planet that the overwhelming majority of Americans (North and South in the hemisphere) not only don’t quite understand, they have never heard of it.

And that would be the Cricket World Cup. Which began today in Bangladesh.

This is a huge event in big chunks of the world. Absolutely huge in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and seriously important in Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and the islands of the Caribbean.

That accounts for something close to 1.7 billion people.

And Yanks and Canucks and Mexicans and Brazilians and Colombians … never have heard of it. Even though the cricket community has been playing this event every four years since 1975.

Australia is the three-time defending Cricket World Cup champion. But you already knew that. Well, no, actually, you didn’t, and neither did I until about a month ago.

Cricket rivals the games of rugby and American football and baseball for the intensity with which it is followed in a handful of countries … and how it is completely ignored in most of the rest.

The Cricket World Cup features 14 teams, and one of them is Canada, but are Canadians following this event? Only if they just arrived from India or England. Other bogus “cricket” countries in the tournament include the Netherlands and Kenya. (Think Little League World Series, and including a team from Saudi Arabia. As if.)

Oddly, the Cricket World Cup isn’t even the biggest event for all the cricket nations. I have been assured that England and Australia are far more interested in The Ashes, the regular head-to-head competition with each other. (Which England recently won.)

But the World Cup matters, to the Anglophones, and it really, really matters on the subcontinent.

India played Bangladesh in the tournament opener today, and the “tea boys” in the room, most of them Bangladeshis, interrupted their tasks numerous times to watch India beating the stuffings out of their side. Hmm. Dark day.

But it isn’t over. This event goes on for 43 days, making it far too long as well as astonishingly boring for the uninitiated — which, yes, is most of the world. By comparison, baseball — a game roundly condemned for being too slow — looks like cricket on crystal meth. Three hours for baseball? Ha! They can play a single cricket match for five days with daily breaks for lunch and tea.  But not in this tournament, which is about getting a result in one day. Positively hasty.

The Cricket World Cup is big here, and The National is treating it accordingly. We had six pages previewing the event the other day, and we dedicated three tab-size pages to it for Sunday a.m. But of course. Everyone wants to know about Virender Sehwag’s “imperious” 175 and Shakib Al Hasan’s fateful decision to let India bat first despite the Pakistani captain winning coin toss. (What was he thinking?)

We are all over it. Not because the local citizenry play cricket, not because Yanks or Canadians play cricket, but because a big chunk of our readership here are middle-class people from India, in particular, and this is The Biggest Event going there. India plays and loves cricket to the point that all other sports are afterthoughts. Really. India can’t even be bothered to assemble a decent soccer team, and it has nearly 1.2 billion people. Same thing for Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

So, the Cricket World Cup. Catch it! Or don’t. You really aren’t missing anything, aside from rounding out your knowledge of what really, really matters to a big chunk of the world’s people.