What a cracker of a Final; was what we expected! Australia, the unbeatable team as aired by Shaun Tait and England, who never aired anything except their displeasure with the Duckworth-Lewis method! What we got instead was a crack in the Armour of the Unbeatable! So what will we remember after this Caribbean Cricket Carnival? Here we go!
Duckworth-Lewis method: ICC has for quite some time 'ducked' the issue of the 'worth' of this method to decide the rain affected matches. There appears to be some madness behind this method when it comes to T-20 matches. No team would like to bat first when there is a cloud cover. No, they will not be worried about the bowlers swinging the ball; they will be worried about the calculators swinging the fortunes even before you can say Duckworth-Lewis. These two gentlemen and their no so gentle method!
Shaun Tait: Time to keep his tongue tight and line and length too. Shooting from the lips and then see the cup slip from your grip is a good lesson for all Superstars and Superstars in the making; Gautham Gambhir included.
Paul Collingwood: He seems reluctant to talk except when forced by circumstances. The bloodiest hard-working and dedicated Cricketer since Steve Waugh deserves all the applause and the right to hit the winning runs in a final against Australia! His equating the World Cup win to Ashes win has left many a people dumb. But we have to realize; for an Englishman, any win against the descendants of those exiled criminals from Down-under is sacred. Only Aussie the Poms will not hate will be Rickey Ponting, the only Australian Captain to lose Ashes twice!
Yuveraj Singh: Talent and memories of past glory aren't enough to fetch you immortality. You need dedication and direction. Unfortunately the most gifted Indian batsman since Sachin Tendulkar lacks both and looks like a spent-force at 28. Can he redeem himself? Let us hope he does manage for the sake of Indian Cricket! They don't make Match-winners by software programming! If they could, India would have been Champions forever!
England: This team of sincere and hard working professionals has 'Flowered' into an awesome fighting unit under the ultra-dedicated Zimbabwean Andy. Kevin Peitersen has remained calm like a sage and played like God throughout. He was rightly blessed with a beautiful baby as a reward, a Man of the Series award and the Winners trophy. The first ever for England in any form of Cricket!
Australia: In spite of the tame loss in the finals, Aussies have played glorious Cricket throughout this Cup and failed just once. They still are the best team in the world by a few yards, now that England have accelerated with this win!
Team India: Remember you are as good as your last win and as bad as your last defeat. Poor Dhoni and his boys; even their loo habits are being criticized these days! We fail to remember England have won their first ever world title after inventing and playing the game for over five thousand years. South Africa have yet to show anything but for an obscure Champions Trophy Silverware.
Pakistan and India have almost same kind of records in ICC Championships. Sri Lanka have won more Asian Cups and done well, but are not really better than India on world stage. New Zealand have won one single Champions Trophy thanks to Indian habit of choking in finals. West Indies have won just a fluke title in the 2004 Champions Trophy final because England choked. But for this, they have won precious little since 1979 on ICC stage.
When South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand and England fail to qualify, that is taken for granted. When Pakistan fail, that has to match-fixing! But when India fail, it is only because of their 'shortcomings' against 'short balls'! The shortcomings are shortlisted by every channel, tabloid and expert on the planet! And this includes this particular blogger!
Except for the almighty Australians, no team has shown consistency over the past 25 years and this is the truth. If at all, Team India showed real consistency under Saurav Ganguly. They lost almost all the finals they played under Dada except the One where England again choked after scoring 325!
South Africa: Their tryst with destiny continues in ICC events. The Best Equipped Test team in the world come croppers when it comes to Multi-Nation events. Some things never change!
New Zealand: Not even die-hard supporters expected them to do any better and they came and went back without much of a fanfare or brickbats! Poor Indians, the weight of expectations always pulls them down!
Pakistan: Something is seriously wrong in Pakistan. First time in living memory, we haven't heard cries of match-fixing from across the border and nobody has been suspended yet! This is when a tail-end batsman hits a stupid shot to hand over one run win to the Kiwis and then they conceded 53 runs from 16 balls to an eighth wicket partnership against the Aussies. Shahid Afridi has so many things in common with our own Viru Sehwag. Both are quite capable of destroying any bowling attack and wagging the tongue. And both make very bad Captains! Viru almost knows it but Afridi doesn't.
The Minnows: Most of the second rung teams are good for that rare 'one good day'. Including Bangladesh, the minnows don't measure up to much on the International scene. Even the best talents from these teams combined together will not be good enough to compete consistently with the G-8. We don't need Gautham Gambhir to declare this.
And finally the West Indies: They played true to character. Not yet ready to be winners but quite capable of bouncing out better teams on their day! It was good to see some quality International Cricket in the Caribbean. Cricket needs West Indies to flourish and for that, they need to win more often!
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