The final game of a tumultuous ICC Cricket World Cup befitted the tournament, with its allegations, losses, and upsets.

Scene 1: A damp morning awaits the World Cup Final. Play starts in the morning after a 2½ hour delay. The match is reduced to 38 overs a side even before a ball is bowled.

Scene 2: Chasing Australia's mammoth total of 281, Sanath Jayasuriya fell into the vicious trap of Duckworth Lewis. He eyed the rain clouds and sensed that a rain interuption, possibly the last one, was round the corner. He wanted to keep his team. In trying to manufacture an ugly across-the-line swipe off the last ball of a Michael Clarke over he surrendered his wicket and set Sri Lanka further back on the D/L chart after the loss of three wickets.

Scene 3: The 5th ball of the 25th over is bowled. Fairly dense droplets of rain are pouring for quite a while now. The pitch is getting mucky and the outfield / bowling run up gets more dangerous by the minute. However the batsmen Chamara Silva and skipper Jayawardene do not budge as that could mean the last of their team's hopes to win the cherished title. Umpires Steve Bucknor and Aleem Dar had hesitated on forcing a pause of play under the exceptional circumstances but now they decided enough was enough and called out for the covers.

Scene 4: The play resumes soon with two overs missing from the over quota available to Sri Lanka and the target reduced to 269. For the last few overs a couple of new-to-the-crease batsmen of a brave team making a valiant attempt to chase a steep target against the world's best side in the biggest and most watched cricket match of all has had the small additional worry of looking at the skies after every delivery as well as the 'parallel' scoreboard of M/s D/L for playing to two different game plans at the same time. One game plan is to win the game over the full distance, the other to stay ahead if rain interrupts the match.

All this is actually taking place even though the tournament rules provide for a reserve day for EACH of the matches of the tournament. Unbelievable! I failed to appreciate the cricketing logic behind that rule when I first heard of it during the group league matches and I still cannot reckon just how they could allow a final to be played under those same set of rules. Remaining true to their ever-greedy selves that owe allegiance only to the telemedia & their sponsors, an all important group of entities that naturally want the matches to end on scheduled days, the rulemakers of International Cricket Council have decreed that:

(i) the reserve day is to be used "only if we have a match with any unfinished innings of less than 20 overs" for any of the sides; and that
(ii) the match starts afresh on the next day instead of the simple matter of completing an interrupted but full 50 over match over two separate days.

And who on earth would prefer that sort of painfully obnoxious enforcement of the word "one day" in "One Day Internationals" in exchange of a proper game of cricket? Who would refuse to even spare the Big Final that crap? Of course the self styled 'keepers of the game', the International Cricket Council.

As indicated in the previous mid-match post I had reckoned Sri Lanka to be overwhelmed by the concession of 30 odd extra runs to sublime big hitting skills of the Aussie wicketkeeper, runs that Adam Gilchrist had no business getting against a bowling side as good as the Lankans, runs that turned a potential nail biter into an expectedly one-sided affair barring an improbable 2nd miracle. However the speculation about the final margin - a fair one - is destined to remain just that as Sri Lanka, who unlike Australia had to suffer mid-innings downpours and consequently let a few crucial mid overs go by while they were helplessly torn between the two game plans, have been as badly hit by the ICC's rule makers as by that blinder from Adam Gilchrist.

Shame on you, ICC. Can you not just do us cricket lovers a favour by disappearing from the face of cricket? The game cannot seriously go on any worse by itself than it is doing at present under your central regime.

What are your Views on this?

1st of all...

koi muze D/L calculation samzayega..?

and yes.. it was very very very unfair... coz Ausi jeete... nahi to fair thha..



















































































give comment in very short while

well ICC is bloody weak governing body who doesn't have the balls to do anything!! forget the final....the ICC failed to mention anything abt Bob Woolmer in the closing speeches. I reckon that this was probably the worst WC i have seen!! well i didn't actually see it but u know what i mean!!

I believe that now we have to accept fact and fact is Australia won the World Cup 2007 and why not they deserve it, all the way they were better then any team in world cup , they learn from their mistake very soon and get back to their wining performance so no meter what happen and match stop they won and this is fact and abt ICC i agree with PB they are really sick

the final...
well wht to say about it... thr was nothing to talk about it...
It was a huge disappointment...
Final need to be a full game... 38 over match at the start it was like wasting ur money watching it...
Later rain coming going... as it Mr Rain god was totally aginst Sri Lanka...

As said earlier it ws the wrst wrld cup of all times.. infact
ppl doing the commentries and on MAx ppl in the studio has also said this..
tht it was not a good wrld cup...

But at the end Australia is the winner.. and frankly speaking ... it was all the way one sided affair...
thy didnt lost a single match... in the cup... so take out the final also
still thy deserve too win...

ne ways.. the most funniest part of the match was when 3 overs were left to bowl and umpires actually offered bad light to the players...
and thy went off the field accepting the umpires decion...
to tht australians started enjoying .. as thy thot its over and thy have won the cup
infact the stage for presentation ceremony was also being set.. thn
mahela came to the ground spoke to the umpires and later it was reveled tht play still has been called off...its just suspended for few mins till lights come back to normal..
and every body was .. wht the heck is going on....
the score board already shows Congrats Australia...
But after ten mins play again started

and 3 more overs were bowled nearly at nite time...
it was actually 6 20 in eve in west indies and light was not at all thr...
and cricket was being played for the first time in dark tht too in a wrld cup final..
it was the most pathetic final u can think of watching....
just australia luck was wid thm tht thy batted first otherwise it might have been the opposite...
sri lanka does not have to loose ne thing...
Rain god took away frm thm... the cup

ok luck might have mattered....but how bloody good was gilchrist?? damn that guy knows how to belt!! all thru the tournament the guy goes out on low scores.....comes to the final belts the living shit out of the lankan bowlers and hands the cup to ponting!! can't get any better can it??

Well, I agree ICC screwed up major time but u cannot take away the credit from the champs. If the cricket playing nations cannot come up with a team better than Aussies, it is not their fault. They deserve to be champions.

Sri Lanka was doing pretty well! They showed some shots of the ground without the enhanced lights from the camera and it was DARK! You could not even see a guy a metre away! They had reserve days for all the matches and that is the reason why the world cup was sooooooo long. Why couldn't they have a reserve day for the finals? It was a complete farce! A sad say for the sport! The game has become so commercialized now that it is destroying the very spirit of the so called 'Gentlemen's game'. Agreed Aus performed well, but then... SL should have been given a fair chance on That Day!

agree with PB but then shit happens!
just kidding.....anyways i like the way Sri Lanka dealt with it. no complaining and moaning like some other teams would have done, total sportsmanship!! i like the way jayawardene conducts himself, brilliant player but very down to earth!

No it is not fair..

ICC themself agreed and made appolouge for such an diastrous WC

very unfair.. though aussies didnt get the appraisal they deserved.. a pak - india final wud have been alot better though.. lol

This post has been edited by * Dulhan *: Jun 27 2007, 09:10 PM