Last laugh for the Lankans?

Would the Aussies get a hatrick or would they get mugged by the Lankans?

The World Cup final between the two teams on Saturday may just be the clash we have been waiting for to light up the tournament. The match might be regarded by many as a clash between the arrogant Aussies and self effacing Lankans, a clash between two cricketing cultures.

The panache with which the Lankans play has endeared them to many neutrals and brought grudging recognition from critics some of whom even preferred either the South Africans or the New Zealanders to get to the final. Their aging stars Jayasuriya, Vaas and Murali have rolled back the years and have led from the front.

The Aussies are a team with a reputation of being aggressive, exuding a confidence bordering on the arrogance. The cock-a-hoop and the swagger that they evince on the field give one the impression that they regard the trophy as theirs by right. To their credit they have played thus far with a machine like precision, steamrolling their way to the final.

Based on their performance so far, the Aussies, who won the trophy twice before, will undoubtedly start the final as the favourites. They won their matches comfortably wihtout being put under pressure or pushed to their limits.

However, the Lankans might be the ones to find a chink in the Aussie armour. Ricky Ponting has admitted that his team can be beaten if they don’t do things well. Could this be a sign of the self doubt that is lurking beneath the façade of invincibility that the Aussies have carefully constructed for themselves?

When both teams met last at the Super 8 stage the Aussies won comfortably but the Lankans went into that match without three of their key bowlers. Apart from Mahela and Chamara their batsmen flopped but not without posting a respectable score of 226. Evidently the Lankans used that match as an occasion to spar with the Aussies and to have a good look at their bowlers.

The Lankans can outplay the Aussies if they bat sensibly and not gift their wickets away as the South Africans did. For this to happen, the mercurial Jayasuriya might have to curb his smash and grab approach during the initial overs and play the sort of innings he put together against the West Indies.

Very few had expected the Sri Lankans to enter the final in 1996, let alone win the Cup, but the Sri Lankans stunned the Aussies and walked away with the trophy. The Aussies dropped five catches that day, including one off Aravinda de Silva who went on to make a century. Jayasuriya was run out in the second over. It might be history but history has a tendency to repeat itself; and the Aussies probably know it.

Wallabies wallop the Proteas

The much touted semi-final match between Australia and South Africa turned out to be a tame, flat, one sided affair. There was nothing memorable about the match.

South Africa went out without so much as a whimper as Ricky Ponting’s men won by 7 wickets and 18 overs to spare. South Africa managed to put on a mere 149 runs on the board and folded up their innings by the 43rd over.

Graeme Smith made the right call with the toss and batted first expecting, we were told, the wicket to get slower as the game progressed. If they had a plan to take the game to the Aussies they probably left it behind, as was apparent by the manner in which they went about their task.

In their haste to take the Aussie bowlers on, the South Africans lost too many wickets too soon and got themselves into a hole very early on. By the tenth over they had lost five wickets for a measly 27 runs by which time their innings was in total disarray. Instead of putting the Aussies under pressure they brought it upon themselves by their wayward batting. The scale of their failure is apparent from the fact that only three of their batsmen reached double figures.

In short, the South Africans played miserably. Had it been Bangladesh playing here there would have been talk of a mismatch, even if the Bangla boys had given the South Africans a drubbing. Instead, do not be surprised if the pundits were to say how invincible the Aussies are.