London, March 25 : Australia's 12-year monopolisation of the World Cup ended in Ahmedabad on Thursday. Their captain Ricky Ponting may have scored a vintage century, but his was a lone fight against a superior India team, writes Simon Briggs for The daily Telegraph.
The report said, after the match, Ponting confirmed that he wants to play on for Australia, despite claims to the contrary in a British newspaper.
“I've never even thought about or contemplated retiring at the end of this World Cup,” he said. “I'm enjoying my cricket as much as ever. You'll hopefully see me playing a lot in the next few years.”
Writes Briggs: This enthralling quarter-final almost felt like a head-to-head contest between the two finest batsmen of their era. Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar have scored more runs in World Cup cricket than anyone else, and both were magnificent yesterday.
Having chosen to bat first, Ponting arrived at the end of the 10th over. He had been short of runs, with 19 innings since his last one-day international century, but you would hardly have known it from the fluency of his footwork and the certainty of his shot-selection.
He scored heavily off the spin of the two Singhs — Yuvraj and Harbhajan — dancing down the pitch to loft the ball over the infield.
There was one lucky escape on 91, when Harbhajan should have had him lbw, but India had already used up all their umpiring reviews. And if anybody deserved a glorious exit from the World Cup, it is Ponting, whose record 46 appearances in the tournament cannot be equalled even if Tendulkar reaches the final.
Australia's problem was that no-one played the supporting role for long enough, with the middle-order of Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey and Cameron White supplying just 23 runs between them. For India, Zaheer Khan was outstanding — as ever — even if he conceded a few late boundaries as Australia finished on 260 for six.
The Indians had a couple of shaky moments with the bat, notably when Mahendra Singh Dhoni cut a catch to point to leave them on 187 for five. Most significantly, though, they never let the required run-rate climb above 6.2 an over in the entire innings.
That had a lot to do with the start provided by a rampant Tendulkar, who took on Australia's three-pronged pace attack with a display of controlled power and classic technique, sending the ball skimming over the outfield with a series of cover-drives and cuts.
Tendulkar's first ball, from Shaun Tait, was caressed to the point boundary with pure touch, and he never looked in trouble until a few moments after he had passed 50, when Tait made one jag away from him.
Tendulkar got a thin edge through to the wicketkeeper, and although the decision was delayed to check whether Tait's back foot had cut the return crease, there was to be no reprieve.
Australia had their moments with the ball, but they never managed to back up one wicket with another. Neither did any of their bowlers seem able to stop a constant flow of singles. Gautam Gambhir nudged his way to 50 with only two boundaries, before dozily running himself out, and then Yuvraj Singh continued his excellent form in this tournament with a mature knock of 57 not out to see the chase home.
India could have frozen when Dhoni was out, but instead Yuvraj and new batsman Suresh Raina (who had replaced the out-of-form Yusuf Pathan)
took the attack to Australia. Raina has a reputation for shakiness against the short ball, but this was far from being a fast pitch, and he was able to pull Brett Lee away when he dug in a bouncer.
Lee had to leave the field briefly after an unkind bounce in the outfield left him with blood streaming from a cut just above his eye.
But it didn't affect the result as India eased home by five wickets in the 48th over."We needed 70-odd runs and had our last batting pair out,” said Dhoni afterwards. “There was pressure, and it was about handling it.” His men will now go forward to what will be an even more tumultuous occasion on Wednesday, a semi-final against their great rivals Pakistan in Mohali.
