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abilliondreams |20 | sport | S U N D A Y H I N D U S T A N T I M E S , N E W D E L H IA P R I L 0 3 , 2 0 1 1

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay atreyo.mukhopadhyay@hindustantimes.com

MUMBAI: Jeff Crowe's presencein World Cup finals as matchreferee continues to causeunusual incidents.After super-

visinga farcicalendto the2007edi ti on i n Brid getow n,Barbados, the former NewZealand captain witnessed a

false start to Saturday's gamebetween India and Sri Lanka.

RETAKE,PLEASEMahendra Singh Dhoni tossedthe specially minted coin intothe air and the head side of it

was showing after it landedonthe surface. There was confu-sion all over after that, asnobody seemed to know whohad won the toss.

Sangakkara claimed he hadcalled correctly, Dhoni didn'tagree and it came down toCrowe, who said he couldn'thearthe callbecause ofthe roargenerated by the crowd in thestands.In a ratherunusualdeci-sion,CroweaskedDhonito tossthecoin again.This time, Sangacalled head and got it right.

There wasnothingwronginwhat Crowe did.Butit stoodoutbecause the decibel levels arealmostthe samein allstadiumsacrossIndiawhenever thehome

teamplays.Thenoiseherewasnot any different from what it

was in the quarterfinal in

Ahmedabador the semifinal inMohali.

GETTING INWRONGCrowedoesnthave fondmem-ories of being involved withWorld Cup finals. In 2007, thematch was completed in neardarkness after Crowe decidedthat a certain number of overshadto bebowled. Thiswasafter

theplayershad leftthe groundand the stumps were removedaseveryonethoughtit wasover.

Given the poor visibility, Australia used their slowerbowlersandthe SriLankantail-enders didn't even try to forcethe issue, knowing that it wasnot possible to go for runs inthose conditions. The players

were told by Crowe that, oth-erwise,the remainingfewovers

wouldhaveto bebowledon thenext day.

The International CricketCouncil took the matter seri-ously and left Crowe out fromthe panel of match officials forthe inaugural T20 World Cupplayed later that year in South

Africa. The umpires of thatmatch, Pakistan's Aleem DarandSteveBucknorof theWestIndies, werealso ignoredalong

withSouth AfricanthirdumpireRudi Koertzen.

So, to be picked for another

WorldCupfinalwas abig thingforCrowe,who stutteredat thestart this time.

Amol Karhadkar sportsdesk@hindustantimes.com

MUMBAI: In the first World Cupafterthe explosionof Twenty20phenomenon, some expectedthe face of batting in ODIs tochange drastically.

However, Indias southernneighbours have shown thatconventionalmethods stillwork.

At least when it comes to bat-ting. In all their eight battingessays, including Saturdaysfinal against India, Sri Lankahaveshowedthat power-hittingis not a required ingredient inthe recipe of ODI batting.

Moreover,the islandershaveshownthatmore thanthedepthin the batting order, it is the

strong toporderthatsetsupabigtotal. Barringthe Australiamatch in the league stage in

which Sri Lanka could not batdueto raininterruption, atleastone of the top four UpulTharanga,TillakaratneDilshan,KumarSangakkaraand MahelaJayawardene has fired,resultingin SriLankagettingamore than handy total on the

board.The only time neither of the

quartetfailedtobuildona goodstartwas against Pakistan andit eventually resulted in SriLanka's only loss of the tour-nament coming into the final.Except forDilshanwhouseshislonghandlemoreoftenthannot,the rest of the troika bats inmore of a traditional manner.Both the southpaws andJayawardene,who handeda les-son on how to score at more

than run-a-ball without hittingthe ball in the air during hisunbeatencenturyon Saturday,relymoreon milkingthe bowl-ing than going after bowlers.

WHEN ITCOUNTSAnd as it has worked for themduring the whole tournament,it worked in the final as well.

After Tharangaand Dilshansloss,the skipper andhis deputycombined to keep the score-

boardmoving withnudges andflicks off the pads and clevernudges behind the wicket.

With the bowlers confused,an odd short ball had to comeand Jayawardene put it to the

boundary with ease.Withthe alreadyweaklower

middleorder havingweakenedeven more due to AngeloMathews unavailability, it wasimperative that one of the no-muck-with-bat occupied thecreasewith Jayawardene. Andone of the too many no-muckslike Chamara Kapugedera,Nuwan Kulasekara, LasithMalinga and Suraj Randiv,Kulasekara not only saved his

wicket but also started uppingthe scoring rate with his crisppulls and drives.

Except for Thisara Pererastwopower-hits inthe lastover,neither Jayawardene norKulasekara usedtheir shouldersin thePowerplay. Still,they man-agedtoscoremorethan 60runsat ease, emphasising that evenin modern-day cricket, battingis not all about power-hitting.

Are the youngsters listening?

LESSON TO LEARN In an ageof power hitting, Lanka batsmenshowed conventional still works

Battingas it should be

Mahela Jayawardenes brilliant hundred came under pressure in the typical Sri Lankan style. The batsmen from the island notched upsome of the biggest partnerships in the World Cup. REUTERS PHOTO

MS Dhoni tosses the coin as Kumar Sangakkara calls headsbefore the start of the play on Saturday. GETTY IMAGES

Crowe goofs up again in a final

Finalmoments

A brilliant catch by Virender Sehwag to dismiss UpulTharanga in the seventh over set the tone for India. AFP PHOTO

S Sreesanths comeback to the team wasnt a memorableone as he went for 52 runs in eight overs. AFP PHOTO

Zaheer Khan struck twice the second one saw him equalShahid Afridis tally of 21 wickets. AFP PHOTO

Harbhajan finally struck and how! Tillakaratne Dilshancould only watch as the ball clipped the bails off. AFP PHOTO

A late flourish by Nuwan Kulasekara and MahelaJayawardene saw Sri Lanka post a good total. AFP PHOTO

Lasith Malinga silenced the crowd by sending back Sehwagoff the second ball of the India innings. SANTOSH HARHARE/ HT

Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhonis partnership got Indiaback into the game after three wickets had fallen. AFP PHOTO

And... INDIA ARE THE WORLD CHAMPIONS!!! HT PHOTO

It was a final that lived up to the build-up as Blueclashed with Blue

switchhitJottings from the road

The crowd at theWankhede Stadiumwas lively throughout theIndian felding. However,the biggest cheer wasreservedfor their localhero, SachinTendulkar.The crowd eruptedwhenskipper MSDhoni

brought on Tendulkar tobowl his legspinners from

the Press Box end. It washis first game at his home-groundsince the first IPLin 2008. In between, hislegend has grown a tad.

Sanjjeev Samyal

HAVING A BALL

Players have differentways of warming upbefore a game. Afterloosening up, theyusually do what they are inthe team for. Bowlerscheck their run-ups and

bowl a few deliveries,whilebatsmen do some shadowpractice or mild knocking.Mahendra Singh Dhonichose to gear up for thefinal by doing what he

would never do in thematch. The wicketkeeper

was seen bowlinginstead standing behindthe stumps when others

were rolling their armsover. It isnt the firsttime that Dhoni has beenseen warming up in such

fashion.Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

BOWLING CHOICEBRINGSCHEER

The Wankhede Stadiumresembled a virtualfortress on Saturday. Thesea of security personnelhad taken positions every-

where. Manning all theentrances were 250Central Industrial ServiceForce personnel, who han-dle the security at the air-ports. The problemwasthere were no boxes keptfor dropping your coins,prompting the public toempty their pockets at the

corner of the gates.Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

FORTRESSWANKHEDE

NUMBERS DONT LIEWe bring you the most important numbers that tell theexciting story that this World Cup has been...

TOP THREE RUN-GETTERS

TOP THREEWICKET-TAKERS

MOST DISMISSALST DILSHAN

500The Lanka openerwas in scorching formright through. Hehowever missed outin the final.

SHAHID AFRIDI

The Pakistan skipperwreaked havoc withthe ball, making

almost everyone dance tohis tune.

S TENDULKAR

482The maestro smashedtwo centuries, butcouldnt get the thirdone to complete histon of tons.

K SANGAKKARA

465The Lanka skippercame up with aspecial knockwhenever the teamwas in trouble.

K SANGAKKARA

He was aseffective behindthe wicket as infront of it with his

catching and stumping.

14

MOST CATCHES

FASTEST HUNDRED CENTURIES

21

ZAHEER KHAN

The India seamerwas at the top ofhis craft. He struck

at crucial times when theteam needed him to deliver.

21

KEVIN OBRIEN

The little-known Irishbatsman caught Englandunawares with his

stupendous power hitting.

50

MAHELA JAYAWARDENE

The Lanka veteranheld everything thatcame his way. His fine

catching infused the Lankanfielding with vigour.

8

SACHIN TENDULKAR

the number ofcenturies scored inthis World Cup.

Sachin scored two.

24

TIM SOUTHEE

The New Zealandpacer surprised oneand all with his

wicket-taking ability eventhough he got little support.

18

the number of runsscored

21333

the number of sixessmashed258 the number ofwickets to fall731

The number ofboundaries

1902highest individualscore by Sehwag

175

STATISTICS: S PERVEZ QAISER