Ausome Five

There was a gold out in the stands and a gold out in the middle too — a complete Aussie takeover of the MCG this Sunday which saw the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy going to Australia — yet again and for the fifth time. On home ground, with at least 93,013 chanting in the stands mostly in bright yellow, it was a great achievement, special for the nation and even more special for skipper Michael Clarke who played his last international ODI and went out of the limited game after occupying its highest, most spectacular, pedestal. But much beyond that, this was yet another time that the collective and comprehensive brilliance of the Australian squad was on full show. The victory, as usual, was so sound and perfectly orchestrated that you were compelled to forgive the Aussies for killing the competition in the game — a game so completely Aussie that both the Player of the Match and the Player of the Tournament came from down under — James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc, respectively.

In a totally batting world, especially in this edition of the World Cup with rule changes that could unsettle any bowler, to have the two top-most awards going to two pacers spoke volumes of the completeness of the Australian team.

Though the result of this game was well predicted and even the Kiwi captain Brendon McCullum was gracious enough to admit that his opponents were far ahead of him in the game, the way that the well organised Australian team kept the match with it throughout the innings showed how way ahead the hosts are from all other teams in the tournament not just their little Trans-Tasman brothers from New Zealand who, as it turned out, were too small for the big occasion. “Not the finished product as yet,” as McCullum put it later in the night.

The Black Caps could score only 183 runs after their captain went for a duck refusing to wait even for an over before rushing out of the crease in search of aggression and build-up. And once Mitchell Starc got the better of BMac (0) with a fourth ball yorker, it became an impossibly big leap for the rest of his mates to take between the duck and the Cup. After winning the toss, Kiwis’ main battery man McCullum got impossibly impatient to go after the Aussie bowlers and paid for his hasty burst of unwarranted aggression. Much like Virender Sehwag, he went for it without waiting, assessing or putting his team onto stable ground. Once McCullum was gone it was only a matter of time before the disciplined, pace-powered Australian battery of bowlers cornered the game to one side — their side.

Grant Elliott showed some patience, class and build-up with 83 runs alongside his partner Ross Taylor (40) but that was not enough for this occasion and when the scoreboard finally reached 183 in the 45th over, there was nothing really left in the game to watch out for. McCullum’s young (average age 27!) and relatively inexperienced squad showed how minimalistic their big stage experience was.

Aron Finch’s wicket in Boult’s first over in-swinger gave a moment to the game but by the time the Kiwis got a fiery Warner (45) out of the middle, he had already taken much of the low scoring game away from the Black Caps.

How disciplined and professional the gene of Australian cricket is comes through from the fact that even after bowling the Kiwis out for such a gettable score, the six top order Australian batsmen went for a quick innings-break batting drill at nets “just to make sure nothing went wrong” before returning to bat in the middle. It was a treat to watch the outgoing captain and the future captain of the Australian cricket team — Steve Smith and Michael Clarke holding forth between the departure and arrival of two World Cups.  Sound, clinical and full of preparation for years to come — from one to the other, from 2015 to 2019, from Australia to England, the preparation has already begun.

Clarke’s departing 74 won him an applause and a standing ovation from the 93,013-strong crowd at the MCG both to revel in the big moment knock and to show gratitude for his long career which won the nation so many accolades all around the world. In the end, when the podium was ready for the Final presentation of the 49-match-long tournament, the only Indian presence on and around the haloed area was Sachin Tendulkar and those Indian colours on the base of the stool on which the golden trophy stood tall – after being taken away from the Indian mantelpiece to now adorn the Australian centre-stage of excellence. Brief Scores — NZ: 183 (Elliott 83, Taylor 40; Johnson 3/30, Faulkner 3/36, Starc 2/20) lose to Aus: 186/3 (Clarke 74, Smith 56 not out, Warner 45; Henry 2/46, Boult 1/40) by 7 wickets.