WILL THERE BE ANOTHER WORLD CUP AS GOOD AS THIS?
When will we see another cricket World Cup as good as the one that ended with a golden hue last Sunday in Melbourne? The sheer beauty of the visual spectacle that small New Zealand grounds provided with a backdrop of hills and the stupendous modernity of some of the Australian grounds with their superbly architected stadiums took the breath away. Add the green, green grass Down Under serving as the background to every cricketing episode in a day made it an aesthetic delight.
The victory of the Australians mans the world order remains intact. India can take heart from the fact that they lost only to the champions while New Zealand went one better, beating Australia narrowly in the league, but surrendering tamely in the final. The winning quality of Australian cricket, which was reflected most of all in the bowling in the final, was simply overpowering. There were no hard luck stories at the highest stages of the knockout.
So much depth did this team possess that anyone wishing to beat Australia in the knockouts could only have been dreaming. Even so, to dream was the right of the three teams who were jousting with the wizards of Oz, be it Pakistan in that wonderful spell of quick bowling by Wahab Riaz, or India when Shikhar Dhawan seemed set to make a match of it until caught on the cover boundary or New Zealand when the South African émigré Grant Elliott and Ross Taylor, with the Maori blood in him, rebuilt the challenge after Brendon McCullum fell without getting bat to ball to any of the three balls he faced from Mitchell Starc.
In four years’ time Australia may be as awesome under Steve Smith. They are a team who have now won the Cup in all possible conditions — in India, England, South Africa, Caribbean and at home. No one can contest a record like that. Even so, English conditions can undo the mightiest of batting teams if the white balls decide to zoom around, more so on dampish nights of dew under lights. So there could be hope for those eternally playing catch up with Australia in the World Cups.
As a cricket fan of some 55 years standing, the only wish I have left is to see a more refined champion team in Australia. If only they can put away that boorish behaviour behind them! Maybe, some cricket ‘ guru’ can convince them that nasty send- offs to batsmen who have just been dismissed does not constitute acceptable behaviour in a genteel game once famously played by gentlemen. This cultivated Ugly Aussie image is unlikely to win them friends in most parts of the cricket world where players do achieve things without having to sound like sailors on shore leave.
Not only were Brad Haddin’s antics most boorish but also his logic in sledging the Kiwis was preposterous. They were so good to them in a week in New Zealand that he could not take it anymore, he said. While it is likely his wicket- keeping and late striking skills will keep him in the team for a while longer, Haddin is unlikely to find praise for his intellectual ability — they certainly won’t admit him to Mensa.
Mercifully, the New Zealanders showed what this great game is all about on the day that they beat South Africa in that gut wrenching, emotional semi final. The batsman who hit the winning six did not go around dancing with his bat in the air. Elliott walked up to the crestfallen bowler Dale Steyn, who was lying flat on the ground, to give him a hand in commiseration to help him get on his feet, literally and metaphorically.
When the Aussies were the beaten side in similar circumstances in Edgbaston in 2005, Andrew Flintoff had demonstrated the game’s greatest quality of humility and compassion by sitting on his haunches next to Brett Lee and helping him overcome the hurt of going down in sport after trying so very hard.
The Flintoff- Lee was a classic moment we are never likely to forget. Those vignettes will remain etched in memory when Haddin’s motor mouth is long forgotten.
Test success over England, if we’re able to achieve that, I think that’ll go down as something that we’ll all remember for a long time Brendon McCullum NZ skipper