Australia proves they are still the best

CENTURION: Was it the biggest mismatch in cricket history? There have been bigger mismatches in sports, but in cricket this could rank as one of them. When New Zealand beat Pakistan in the second semi-finals to book a place in the final against Australia everyone knew the match would be an anti-climax and so it proved to be.

Ricky Ponting

To make matters worse for New Zealand they lost their captain Daniel Vettori in the most important game of the tournament due to a hamstring injury which he had been carrying right throughout and forced him out of the contest at a most vital moment.
Vettori has been carrying an injury-stricken New Zealand team all the way to the final. Apart from being their captain he was also their leading performer through the tournament.
New Zealand gave a hint of hitting back in the final when they captured two Australian wickets for six runs by the third over defending a small total of 200-9, but Shane Watson with his second successive unbeaten hundred he scored one in the semi-finals against England) and Cameron White (62) ensured there was no further hiccups for Australia as they sailed past the New Zealand total with 28 balls to spare and win by six wickets.
Australia, the defending champions, having won the last tournament held in India three years ago, thus become the first nation to win the Champions trophy twice.
They once again proved that they are still the leading international side when it comes to global 50-over competitions. Australia is currently the reigning champion in the ICC’s two major 50-over global competitions - the Cricket World Cup and the ICC Champions trophy.
Coming into the 2009 Champions trophy no Australian had made a century in the history of the tournament, but against England in the semi-finals at the Centurion they produced two when captain Ricky Ponting and opener Shane Watson scored a hundred apiece and shared a new second wicket partnership of 252 for Australia in one-day cricket. Watson followed it up with another century in the final to win the Man of the Final award. As the leading run-getter in the tournament (288 runs from 5 matches) Ponting won the Golden Bat award and he was also voted the Man of the Tournament. South African fast bowler Wayne Parnell won the Golden Ball award as the leading wicket-taker with 11 wickets from 3 matches, but to the disappointment of the local spectators he was not present to receive his award.
The 2009 Champions Trophy for all the question marks it posed like being the last of its kind and the future of it depending on the survival of one-day cricket still attracted multi-million dollar prize funds from sponsors – US$4 million for a fast-paced 15-day format with the winners Australia raking in US$ 2million, the runner-up New Zealand US$ 1million with the two beaten semi-finalists (England and Pakistan) picking up US$ 400,000 each and the teams that finished third in their groups each winning US$ 100,000 (Sri Lanka from Group B and India from Group A). In addition each member of the winning Australian team won a unique ICC Champions Trophy winners’ jacket which only a champion was entitled to wear.
New Zealand was one of the most consistent performers in international cricket as they proved in the 2009 Champions trophy reaching the finals of the competition beating teams like Sri Lanka, England and Pakistan. Captained by brilliant all-rounder Vettori, a clever spin bowler and a valuable late order hitter, New Zealand showed it had the potential to be the winner of the event despite the loss of hard hitting Jesse Ryder who was forced out of the tournament after the second match against Sri Lanka with an injury. The return of fast bowler Shane Bond to the Kiwi line-up for his first international event for more than a year gave an extra dimension to the New Zealand bowling. Their only win in the Champions trophy was in 2000 when it was held in Kenya, the only time the tournament was hosted in Africa.
What the 2009 Champions trophy revealed is that you can have the best talented players in the world and the best balanced team in the competition, but if you don’t play well on the day you can end up on the losing side. That’s what happened to top ranked sides like the host country South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. India it could be said were not at full strength in the absence of two of the finest stroke makers in the game missing from their ranks – Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh through injury. But all the other sides put out their strongest elevens onto the park with the exception of West Indies whose internal problems saw their senior players missing form their ranks.
Graeme Smith who is in his seventh year of leadership of South Africa said after his team suffered a first round knockout: “If we don’t win an ICC trophy then it won’t make us a bad dream. We’ve achieved too much for that to be the case. But it will be a huge hole on our CV and one that we’re all very conscious of. But I don’t think for one minute that we won’t win an international tournament. We have too many good players and too much collective determination to keep falling short.”
England’s men’s team once again disappointed, failing to take inspiration from the women’s side that has won two major global ICC events this year – the Women’s World Cup and the Women’s World Twenty20. Andrew Strauss’s men who had proceeded to the semi-finals with victories over two strong sides Sri Lanka and South Africa met their nemesis Australia in the semi-finals and were beaten rather comprehensively by eight wickets.
Pakistan’s attempts to repeat their success of the ICC World Twenty20 ended when they were beaten by New Zealand in the semi-finals. The Pakistanis had overcome arch rivals India in their much looked-forward to group match played at the Centurion, but when everyone expected them to beat New Zealand and qualify for the final they disappointed.
The Champions trophy is the only global 50-over event that brings together all the top batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders prior to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. The world’s best eight teams played in the tournament and it was impossible to predict who was going to win. Only two of the teams taking part had never won this event (England and Pakistan). The closeness of recent one-day series has seen all the leading sides experience success as well as failure. The 2009 tournament was as colourful as the World Twenty20 providing spectators enough and more entertainment on and off the field.