World Cup ends with sub-continent triumph

MUMBAI – India’s in seventh heaven, Sri Lanka reached the final and Pakistan reached the last four.

Only Bangladesh out of cricket’s main Asian nations had a bad World Cup.But Australia, South Africa and England are back at home, licking their wounds and reduced to watching the World Cup final on television, admiring India’s maturity and talent in the one-day game while holding investigations into why they flopped so badly.The captains of all three nations and New Zealand – which at least reached the semifinal – have either quit or are on the verge of doing so.Australia’s Ricky Ponting stepped down after one of Australia’s weakest performances for many years, South Africa’s Graeme Smith has dropped the captaincy of the one-day team while England’s Andrew Strauss and Kiwi Daniel Vettori are considering their futures.Apart from New Zealand, the three traditional powers of world cricket were poorly prepared for the World Cup. England looked exhausted after almost six months on the road and Australia is still struggling to carry out the transition from the era of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist, who watched India lift the trophy at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday night.South Africa, on paper, looked a commanding team and was one of the favourites, but was unable to finish games off, living up to the ‘choker’ tag it has acquired in recent years.Bangladesh is still a minor nation in international cricket, even though the team occasionally beats the major powers. The team lacks depth, however, and relies too much on a couple of individuals like captain and all-rounder Shakib al-Hasan. Even playing on home wickets couldn’t guarantee it a place in the last eight.Pakistan should have been one of the hosts and just might have advanced to the final if their players had been allowed to play on the slow wickets of Lahore and Karachi, according to the original plan.But the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore meant Pakistan had to give up its status as co-host. Otherwise the tournament could have been fatally damaged by nations refusing to travel to a country they considered dangerous.Pakistan had a disastrous run-up to the tournament, losing three players to a match-fixing scandal, but found an unlikely hero in flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi, who took on the captaincy, apparently on condition that he was given complete control over team selection, a rare opportunity in the intensely political world of Pakistani cricket.Afridi was a revelation and led a resurgent Pakistan side that just failed at the semifinal hurdle to the eventual winners. Set 260 to win, Pakistan could have won but for some inexplicably slow batting.Sri Lanka, given the chance to play all but two of their games on the slow-turning wickets they are used to in Colombo, Kandy and Hambantota, saw off England and New Zealand with ease thanks to explosive batting that set the tournament alight and the bowling of spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and Lasith Malinga.But that was all the bowling Sri Lanka has. The rest, as India exposed in the final, is harmless slow-medium pace. Questions are bound to be asked about why Ajantha Mendis, tipped to follow Muralitharan as Sri Lanka’s next top bowler, was dropped for the final despite an economy rate of just three at the World Cup.It was India that showed the consistency and depth needed to become champions. In the final, when their two main batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag failed, Gautam Gambhir, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh stepped in with game-winning performances.India’s bowling was far from world-beating, but it was disciplined and prepared to concede up to 300 runs, knowing the batsmen could chase down such a total.There’s little doubt India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were helped by playing on their own pitches, but there’s also little doubt that top cricketers should have the application and discipline to learn how to bat when the ball seems to stick in the wicket.The next World Cup in 2015 will be held in Australia and New Zealand and will consist of only the top 10-ranked teams, which will most probably exclude Kenya, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Canada, which made little impact.- Nampa-AP