Clarke's one sided statement

I was a bit fascinated when I came to know that Google announced the Knol but, the very next moment I had to turn my attention back to writing this post for, that was the time my mood was well set for the game. However, my post has got to do with the Australian captain Michael Clarke who cites his team's successful run chase of 334 against England as a preparation for the upcoming world cup. This no doubt has to be true, given Australia's chances in the big stage considering their days even after the 2007 world cup after which they lost close to 10 players from all departments of the game.

Australia not only made it to the finals of the world T20 tournament in West Indies last year but also did it in style by not losing a single match until the one that counted. The semi finals between Australia and Pakistan will go down as one of the most memorable one for Australia where they successfully chased down a mammoth total of 192 despite at one stage of the match reeling at 105/5 at the end of the 16^th over. They won the ICC Champions trophy in 2009 after beating teams like Pakistan, England and New Zealand which once again saw them go undefeated in a world tournament.

However, coming to Michael Clarke's words, regarding his team's big chase, it must be noted that Australia had lost 5 matches consecutively before they headed to that year's world cup in the Caribbean. They were whitewashed by the Kiwis with the 1^st match seeing Australia lose all ten wickets for a score less than 200 and in the remaining two encounters, New Zealand successfully chased down 337 and 347 in the 2^nd and 3^rd ODIs respectively. Almost a year before that, South Africa had successfully chased down 435 against Australia. But, both South Africa and New Zealand came nowhere in matches against Australia on the big stage.

Now, Australia have recorded their most successful chase beating their previous best of 327 against South Africa in 2002. But this stands nowhere in today's cricket, with the current chase of 334 standing in the 4^th position and with 9 cases of 320+ totals being chased down successfully. This no matter will boost Australia's confidence before they go to the world cup but, even India has similar stories to its credit when they snatched a victory from nowhere in the 2^nd and 3^rd one dayers in their recently concluded bilateral series. Australia's feat was achieved on their home soil while India's was away from it.