A final worth watching

Well as an Indian, I should be glad to see my team country lift the ICC cricket world cup for the 2^nd time. At last, India have won another world cup and that too after the color dress was introduced in one day cricket. Pakistan and Sri Lanka had previously won their world cups in 1992 and 1996 wearing color dress and India was deprived of such prestige which happened to be true yesterday after their 6 wicket win over Sri Lanka at Mumbai. As a result, India became the 1^st nation to win a world cup on home soil.

But, my post here is regarding the finals of world cups which have been one sided since the past three editions when Aussies were totally unbeatable. The case was partly similar in 1996 as well when the third Sri Lankan wicket of Ashanka Gurusinha fell when they were closing in on the target of 241 set by Australia. Australia was totally outplayed. This time, both the teams should consistency and finally since there can be just one winner, Sri Lanka had to be satisfied with the runners-up tag. A total of 274 was a decent one to both chase or defend unlike in previous 3 WC finals.

I can still recall the way Shane Warne demolished the Pakistani batting line up consisting of Saeed Anwar and co in the finals of the 1999 world cup where Pakistan were dismissed for 132-the lowest total in the finals of a world cup. Even Scotland and Bangladesh were able to score 181 and 178 respectively in their matches against Australia. The entire match lasted for just 59 overs meaning just about half an hour after one innings would have got over. Had this been known before hand, may be the finals might have been held soon after the 2^nd semi-finals would have got over.

Then comes the 2003 finals where after Australia had piled up a mammoth 359 losing just 2 wickets not before inflicting a 100+ run partnership, the only question that was awaited was "by how many runs would Australia win?" and "how long would the Indian innings last?". So was the case in 2007 . Sri Lanka should be lucky that the match didn't last 50 overs which would have otherwise seen a target in excess of 359 that was imposed against India in 2003. Still, the fastest hundred in the world cup final happened to be broken and so was the highest individual score in the world cup final.Don't forget to check out the Army Blog.