Pentastic

title at his age is something to savour. And yet this victory, as well as the ease of it, was owed to awesome threesome of left arm quicks — Mitchell Starc, James Faulkner and Mitchell Johnson — and maybe in that order with Starc being the one who bowled the brilliant fullish length in the very first over to beat McCullum’s bat and hit the off stump.

It is the power of pace that set up this win on a very good batting pitch on which 300 was gathered in all World Cup matches by teams batting first. Faulkner, who said the surface was slow to begin with, exploited its increasing pace best in the power play overs, knocking the resistance out after the breakthroughs provided by Starc and, quite extraordinarily, by the irrepressible Glenn Maxwell who bowled Guptill with a traditional off break.

Four years ago, the quarterfinal against Australia had been India’s toughest assignment. Even on the slow surface of Ahmedabad, the Aussies challenged the home team and favourites. Yuvraj Singh swung that game with what was clearly the most crucial innings of the game. Down Under, they returned the compliment, beating India with a lot left in the tank after having had some trouble in getting past Pakistan in the quarter final. India did not have the pace of Wahab Riaz to test them even if the short-pitched ball brought them back with a few wickets in the middle game.

Where McCullum may have let himself down after having set such high standards in terms of aggressive captaincy in backing his bowlers with a clutch of close catchers was in removing a second slip too early. Warner may have fallen had Vettori still