Quite simply, the champions played ‘vintage’ cricket to be the champions again, and then sprayed drinks all over their captain as he received the trophy. The ICC President Percy Sonn displayed nifty footwork to get out of the way as soon as he handed the cup. So not only did he avoid getting wet with the spray, but also, there was no shoving him off the stage by any overjoyed Australian player.
This is a great Australian team, and it has this priceless ability to have a player stand up when it is needed most. Adam Gilchrist had done little to excite the fans and spectators for most of this event, but here in the final, he played an innings of such brutality that try as hard as he did, Jayawardene couldn’t quite get the slump out of his shoulders while the plunder was going on. Thirteen boundaries and eight sixes in scoring the fastest World Cup final century are the bare stats of Gilchrist’s batting, but beyond that, the damage he caused to Sri Lanka’s psyche was incalculable. The Lankans would have fancied their chances in a curtailed game, especially as they had the advantage of knowing how many they had to score and at what rate, since the toss had already taken place and they were fielding. What they probably hadn’t accounted for was how Gilchrist would take the game away from them with his blitzkrieg. What his assault did was to completely throw off balance even that most experienced seamer Chaminda Vaas, who in order to stop the free Gilchrist swing, was forced to bowl fuller down the leg-side and ended up conceding wides and lost his line and length. The Lankans erred by picking Fernando, who was acutely conscious of his double warning for running on the danger area in the semis, and so was hardly going to be effective. His extra pace and carelessness with overstepping was also a factor, and of course, with his bulk, he is not the swiftest of movers in the field. The return catch he dropped off Gilchrist when on 31 was the turning point. It is a subcontinental failing of sticking to a winning combination even if there are players in that combination who are short on confidence and form, like Fernando so obviously was.
Not that Maharoof would have been able to stop the carnage being caused by Gilchrist, but he certainly wouldn’t have looked as clueless and forlorn as Fernando looked right from the first ball he bowled. The thing to remember is that even in a game reduced to 38-overs-a-side, Gilchrist and Hayden took a few overs to get their eye in and a feel of the pace and bounce of the pitch before beginning the attack. Once that started, the earlier quiet overs were made up for as the scoring rate accelerated. Even when Ponting came in to bat, he took his time to settle down. He could do that of course, because at the other end, Gilchrist was making every ball count for more than a run. Apart from Gilly and Symonds, none of the other Australian batsmen had a scoring rate of a run-a-ball and that was sensible cricket.
With Tharanga’s bad form continuing, it was up to the veteran Jayasuriya and Sangakarra to take the fight to the enemy camp, and they did that with spirit, though the pitch was hardly helping them as it had slowed down so much that deliveries from Tait, who was consistently clocking over 85 miles an hour were going just above ankle-height, making it tough to play on the rise. Maybe the rains had something to do with it, but there is no doubt that the pitch was not quite up to the mark for a World Cup final. Just look at the dismissal of Jayasuriya, who found that the ball from spinner Clarke hardly got off the ground. Once he was out, Lanka’s chances faded as quickly as the light was fading, and all Australia had to do was to ensure there were no ‘boundary’ overs.
By winning their 29th consecutive match over three World Cups, the Australians have proved themselves to be true champions. If the seniors in their team; Hayden, Gilchrist, McGrath and Ponting dominated this edition of the Cup, the scary part for the rest of the world is how quickly youngsters like Michael Clarke, Shaun Tait and Shane Watson have come to grips with the nuances of limited-overs cricket.
With players like Ponting, Hussey and Symonds good enough to play in the next World Cup, it’s a truly frightening prospect for the rest of the cricketing world to contemplate on how to win the big events from the Aussies.
Sure, they will lose the odd game, as happened at the start of the year, and maybe even the odd Test series. But at the moment, the Aussies are from another planet altogether, and it may take light years for any other team to catch up with them and take the titles away from them.
