England Wins First T20 Cricket World Cup
If you did not spend this Sunday watching the T20 World cup final, then you have no clue what you missed.
Today, England won their very first trophy in world cricket, and they did it in spectacular fashion, beating the previous world- beaters by seven wickets in a game that they dominated from the very first over.
When the English team came to the West Indies to play in this tournament, no body really treated them with great respect— that was reserved for the teams from the Asian sub-continent, and the land of the kangaroos.
I personally have not fancied any English cricket team since Mike Gatting and Ian Botham retired, save for a brief period when Nasser Husain was skipper. The Aussies were by far the best team of this competition from their showings in the qualifying matches; but today they had no answer for the resurgent English team.
Match after match, the Aussies had won by their sheer tenacity and determination, including matches they were supposed to lose, such as their semifinal against Pakistan. Today none of those Aussie heroics were to repeat, and the English team - with their thoroughly professional performance - proved the Aussies were just another team to beat.
Batting first, Australia had lost their first wicket in the very first over. No one had thought at the time that it was anything more than a minor hiccup. When they lost their other opener in the very next over, there was still no alarm bell going off in the Aussie Pavilion.
Only when Clarke fell in the tenth over, the first wrinkle on the Aussie skipper’s forehead appeared, though there was much batting still to follow. An accurate and steady English attack never gave their opponents any breathing room.
When the Australians completed their innings with a score of 147, that was the moment many thought about the possibility of England winning this championship. Yet no one was really sure. You cannot be when you play against the Australians.
True to their reputation, the Aussies took the first English wicket with only 7 on the score board. However, the next wicket did not fall until the scoreboard showed 118 in the 14th over, and by that time the match was virtually over.
Today England made the best performing team of the 2010 T20 games look like a very ordinary team, proving once more, the best team of the day wins, reputation notwithstanding.
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