Sunday, March 20, 2011

What is so gr8 in it?

Yesterday, Pakistan beat Australia by 4 wickets to stop their 35 match winning streak that included one tied match against South Africa in the semi finals of the 1999 world cup and one match abandoned with the match against Sri Lanka being called off due to rains. May be this world have come before for Australia, had that game taken off. But, despite all these facts, I personally don't regard this as a major victory for Pakistan or any team to have managed it. Not because that I'm an Indian and turning down Pakistan's achievements is my birth right that I am into such statements.

But, beating a team that was once an unbeatable team is not a major achievement. Only a handful of players from the Australian side are found playing cricket though not at their career best of form and fitness. Only Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson and Brett Lee are found making it to the squad since 2003 when the Aussies were unbeatable. And for the matter, Ponting is at his best only in smashing LCD sets rather than the ball which has was known to be. There is no Gilchrist, Hayden, Martyn, Symonds and Mike Hussey to take the batting charge with McGrath, Nathan Bracken and Brad Hogg to bowl.

Added to that, the current Aussie team lacks a match winner like Michael Beaven who could take his team out from the clutches of defeat despite his team reeling at 135/8 against England in 2003 and Andy Bichael who was a replacement for Jason Gillispie and proved much more than what Gillispie would have been. Australia never finished with a run rate less than 6.0 an over in the 2007 world cup batting 1st and got all its opponents all out with Bangladesh being an exception in the 2007 world cup. Coming close to such a team was also a tough task let alone winning.

It would be no tough task to fight a 90 year old man when thinking about the same when the person at his young age would have made him pay the price. In the current cricketing world, Australia is as good as any other team and winning against them would be just another win against a normal opposition. New Zealand could have done this for, they were the 1st decent team to have faced the Aussies in 2011 WC. Since the 2007 triumph, the Aussies have made news only for bad reasons though they won the ICC champions trophy in 2009 and were the runners-up in world T20 2010.

It would be nice to think about ways to make money online, online business guide than cheering a pseudo-record by Pakistan I'd suggest.

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