Matthew Hayden created the world cup record for the fastest century, Ponting missed another century, Clarke showed why he is good in both forms of the match, Gilly provided the momentum and Symonds did not need to do anything at all!
Look at the solidity in the team.
When people like Waughs, Bevan, Warne left the scene, we thought that these Aussies will now no longer be the invincibles and that we had some kind of justice in the cricketing world finally!
But look at them! While their bowling remains a cause of concern (McGrath is an old shadow of himself), it is supported by some amazing fielding and they simply bat everybody out of the game!
They are supremely confident of their abilities and their status in world cricket.
This confidence rubs on the newcomers like Shaun Tait, Watson etc and you have a world beating team once again - the credit for this, must go to Ricky Ponting, who has led from the front by batting like he was on song for almost 2 years now !!! Not my favourite player, but he always looks like the one who will break Tendulkar's records for maximum centuries in ODI's today.And what a match it was yesterday!
Smith led from front to overcome Aussies once again and at one stage they were unbelievably 160 from 21 overs !!!! However, pressure soon got to them as wickets started falling one after other and as Kallis batted infuriatingly slowly (a-la-Dravid), and Gibbs (sent down the order for some stupid reason) perished trying to hit the Aussies and pressure out of the grounds. Eventually the result went where it deserved - to the Aussies! But the viewers enjoyed the game of cricket!!!
I may not be a great fan of their humility, but let me salute their One Day Cricket Winning Spirit!!!
(Image Courtesy: Cricinfo)
4 comments:
Yes, I saw the match. Hayden was just ruthless.
And no doubt, they are the world no. 1 team and were my favourites since even before the WC started.
Finalists are South Africa & Aussies.
Hey Cuckoo,
yes, it would be great to have both of them in the finals - ut let us not underestimate the Black Caps and in form Sri Lankans (whom I had dismissed initially as those who would not make it to semis) - it is indeed a game ofglorious uncertainities as they call it!
They do not have as many STAR players as we have. Then what makes them perform such kinda feats? We "had" the coach who was ready to mould us the same way, but our bureaucrats didn't give him that much freedom.
Hats off to Mathew Hayden!!!
Hi Abhijit,
That is exactly my point - the Indian team is not a 'team' but has assorted individuals with their own agendas, some play fr records, other for post and some even for personal vendetta - unike the Aussies or for that matter every other team except Pakistan!
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