Another Master Blaster
Cozier at the World Cup
Stabroek News
March 28, 2007
It was a sentiment Brian Lara could appreciate as Matthew Hayden blasted his hapless bowlers around Antigua's imposing new stadium, named after the master of all blasters.
"I felt helpless," England captain Mike Brearley conceded after Viv Richards and Collis King were similarly manhandling his attack in the second World Cup final at Lord's in 1979.
"I knew there was nothing more we could do."
Richards, now observing from one of the radio commentary boxes at the edifice that bears his name, and the merciless King pummelled 139 off 31 overs to effectively settle that contest even before England began their innings.
Richards' unbeaten 138, which ended with a six off the last ball, was made from 157 balls. But, during their stand, even he was outdone by King's 86 off 66 balls.
That was a different, distant age. The ball was red, the clothing was white and the limit was 60 overs an innings. It was, in other words, a scaled down version of Test cricket and the West Indies' 286 for nine was comfortably a winning total.
For all the changes in the shorter game that has made 300 totals more commonplace, the basic principles remain the same. One rampaging batsman, aided by a colleague or two, can make everything else redundant.
So it was with Clive Lloyd's 102 off 85 balls, and his help from the sage and graying Rohan Kanhai, in the first World Cup final in 1975. And with Richards and King four years later.
Ricky Ponting's 140 off 121 balls (with eight sixes) and his unbroken stand of 274 with Damien Martin in the latest final in Johannesburg four years ago, left India shell-shocked and beaten half-way through the match.
Hayden has now had the same impact in successive innings. On Saturday, he blasted World Cup's quickest hundred off 66 balls on the postage-stamp of a ground that is Warner Park in St Kitts.
It set up a psychologically important victory in the last match of the group stage. Australia had ceded their No1 ranking to South Africa only weeks before and needed to reassert themselves. Hayden immediately made the decisive, emphatic statement.
This match was the first of the Super Eight phase. It was against the home team on home territory, a tricky assignment for the Aussies against opponents who twice had had the better of them in their last five meetings.
The cheap loss of Adam Gilchrist, another early wicket for Daren Powell, and the run out of the ominous captain, Ricky Ponting, heaped responsibility on Hayden's massive shoulders.
He gave himself 18 scoreless deliveries to scrutinize the bowling and the pitch.
Satisfied there was menace in neither, he opened up the throttle, punching boundaries with his great strength but also effortlessly finding gaps in the widespread field for singles and twos.
Michael Clarke was his partner as he restored Australia's innings but when Clarke, Andrew Symonds and Michael Hussey fell in the space of 10 overs, the balance appeared even.
Australia were 234 for five in the 41st over and a total beyond 300 was doubtful. Less courageous batsmen, with over a hundred to their name and nine overs remaining, might have taken the safe course of seeing out the innings.
It is not an option that appeals to the batting tyrants. The powerful Queenslander responded as Lloyd and Richards would have. He simply hit harder and longer, intimidating bowlers by advancing to meet them feet out of his crease.
He required a mere 33 balls to move from 100 to 153 before he was caught just inside the long-off boundary. There were three sixes and four fours in that session, the catalyst for Australia's 88 off 9.1 overs following Hussey's dismissal.
Lara, like Brearley and others before him, was powerless to halt the onslaught. The West Indies need someone to respond in kind on resumption this morning.