Oz & WI share lot in common

The only different between Australia and the West Indies is that the former team is filled with white players and the latter with black. Or else, the two teams namely Australia and West Indies share a lot in common. This happens both when it comes to success as well as failures. As everyone is aware of, both Australia and the West Indies are the only teams to have won more than one world cup. Of course, Australia have won 4 world cups which is a different issue here. There are only two captains namely Australia's Ricky Ponting and West Indies' Clive Lloyd who have lifted world cup twice.

Added to that, they have done it consecutively with the West Indian captain lifting it in 1975 and 1979 while Ricky Ponting has done it successively in 2003 and 2007. Australia and the West Indies are the only two teams who have so far won both an ICC Champions Trophy and a world cup. Once again Australia have done it twice with West Indies doing it only once. And, in 2002 the honors were shared between India and Sri Lanka. Both Australia and West Indies have two players who have made it to the Wisden's top five cricketers of the century.

Australian players Shane Warne and Sir Donald Bradman were voted as one among the Wisden's five cricket players and from the West Indies there were Sir Vivian Richards and Sir Garfield Sobers who have made it to the elite list. As a matter of trivia, the only other player who has made it to the Wisden's five cricketers of the century was England's Sir Jack Hobbs. And lastly, both the West Indies and Australia were a world dominating side defeating whom even in an inconsequential match is a clebration. These were the successful instance where Australia and West Indies share similarities.

But, both teams share similarities when it comes to areas where one wants it to the the last thing to happen. In a T20 world cup, Australia and West Indies are the only two test playing nations who had to return back home in the first stage of the tournament when West Indies lost both games in 2007, one each to RSA and Bangladesh while Australia lost both their games in the earlier edition in 2009 when they lost their matches to Sri Lanka and West Indies. Australia in 2007 and West Indies in 2009 not only reached the semis of the world cup but also lost to those teams which went on to become the runners up of that tournament.