| The World Cup Final | |
Australia Celebrate |
There is only one word to describe the
World Cup Final and the team that won it - INCREDIBLE. Ricky Ponting led the best one-day squad in history to a remarkable win over India in Johannesburg to justify their billing as pre-tournament favourites. India may have played into Australia's hands by winning the toss and fielding because if you are going to beat the boys from Down Under it is usually by putting a score on the board and then putting them under pressure. |
| Ganguly will know if he
made the decision for the right reasons, but if they were negative
and because he just did not fancy facing Glenn McGrath and Brett
Lee under a bit of cloud cover, then it almost certainly cost them
whatever chance they had. The Indian bowlers were never allowed to hit line and length and the carnage that ensued was fantastic to watch. Adam Gilchrist gave them a platform and then Ponting and Martyn went berserk with the bat. They knew they had the match won before they went out to field. To have any chance of reaching 350, India needed to have Sachin Tendulkar at the crease for most of their 50 overs. He went in the first and after that it was a just a question of when the last fire of their innings would die out. I had every sympathy with Tendulkar because he had to attack from the off and he must have known it would be a task too far even for his genius. Chasing a target like that you stop believing and when that happens it's all over. But tribute to Australia, they showed just how strong their squad is by emerging triumphant without Gillespie and Warne. Replacements like Hogg, Symonds and Bichel came in and were outstanding. The biggest pity of the World Cup was that England failed by a whisker to qualify for the Super Sixes after deciding not to play in Zimbabwe and then running Australia very close, indeed we came closer than anybody to inflicting defeat on the champions. There were positives however and the likes of Andrew Flintoff, Jimmy Anderson and Paul Collingwood can look back and take credit from their performances. But in truth there was only one team in it and everybody knows what they suspected, Australia are simply the best, better than all the rest. |
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