The world cup final that shouldn't have been

We were all excited to watch the world cup throughout the night.. I put on an extra winter coat to keep myself warm throughout the match and was all ready to watch the match. Was feeling very excited and nervous! to my annoyance the tv channel was showing "spiderman" till just past 11 o'clock ??!!!!^%@^&@ (the match is supposed to start at 11) Then finally they switched the channel to the sports channel, where Ian Healy and Mark Taylor were discussing weather, it was raining in Barbados..oh great! so the match is delayed.

Next to keep the viewers entertained till the match started, they began showing the extended highlights of the world cup final of '92, match between Pakistan and England. what the hell?!!@!
Out of all the possibilities why did they have to bore us with a match that had nothing to do with either Australia or SL? At least they could have given us a recap of this world cup or a summary of all the world cups since '75 or something interesting as such. Well, by the time the match finally started I was bored to death watching Imran Khan bowling the same ball to Ian Botham in slow motion over and over again!

Finally,..the match started with just 38 overs, what a pity for a much anticipated world cup final!
You would have expected the most important match in the whole series to have been organised so well, that you could kick back and enjoy. But this match turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. All went well for the Aussie innings, and Gilchrist (Gilly) batted out like mad! it was an incredible batting performance! Specially for someone who hasn't been in form all throughout the series.

Next the Sri Lankans came out to chase what seemed like a humanly impossible target of 281 in just 38 overs, that's a run rate of 7.4! but we still had Jayasuriya so there was a glimmer of hope, so I thought. However, to me it didn't seem like any of our batsmen were confident enough to go all the way. I dozed off and missed a couple of overs around 5 in the morning and woke up to a boundary by Jayasuriya. Jayasuriya and Sanga settled down a bit and lifted the run rate, but the strokes they played seem to be more out of desperation.

To add to the annoyance, it started raining again (just after we passed the 20 over mark; should have been good if the rain poured down a bit earlier :) but that was not to be) anyway, after another while yawning away, the match started again. The batsmen came out into the field not knowing what the revised target was. So both the batsmen and the Aussies stood there confused, waiting for the information from the umpires who were doing the D/L calculations. Wow, how professional. Finally it was announced that the 38 overs were further reduced to 36.

From there on the match went ok until it was begining to look very dark out there. Next came the biggest blunder of the whole series. The SL batsmen were offered to take the bad light condition and call an end to the match, which they did. And the Aussies started celebrating the victory, but not for long, the umpires intervened and told them the match isn't over yet. We were all confused as to what is going on. Next the SL batsmen were called back in to bat in the dark. The commentators were furious. it seriously was absurd, the ground didn't have lights to play on. So Mahela and Ponting discussed to use spinners for the last couple of overs instead of throwing fast balls at someone who could barely make out where they are coming from.

After what seemed like ages, the match came to an end, with Australia winning the 2007 world cup,..... Again!!

Have to admit it the Australian team is doing exceptionally well, and they do deserve to win the world cup.

But the Sri Lankan team has done very well to have come into the finals and put up a brave performance. Win or lose we are with you, you have always been the pride and joy of the tiny little island in the Indian ocean.

Oh well, better luck next time!