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Chris Cairns: pulled a rabbit from the hat at Nairobi© Getty Images

The Champions Trophy, a biennial extravaganza organised by the ICC, was started with the intention of spreading the game to all corners of the globe. The inaugural competition was held in Dhaka in 1998, and the knockout format inevitably produced some thrilling fare. The carnival moved on to Nairobi and Sri Lanka in the next four years, and the fourth edition will pan out over the next two weeks in England. Though form might suggest otherwise, history favours India and South Africa, two teams that have never failed to reach the semi-final stage. Strangely enough, Australia have floundered in this tournament and have never made it past the last four. The Czech tennis player Ivan Lendl once said “Grass is for cows” when asked about his record at Wimbledon. Dare one say it, but will the Aussies soon be muttering about how “Knockouts are for boxers”?

The Champions Trophy down the years

Wills International Cup in Dhaka, 1998South Africa came into this tournament with an enviable record. After Brian Lara’s heroics had shunted them out of the 1996 World Cup, the team led by Hansie Cronje won 45 of their next 59 matches, and started as one of the favourites here. Jacques Kallis sparkled with both bat and ball, with his 5 for 30 ripping through West Indies in the final. A rollicking 113 in the semi-final against Sri Lanka – when the next highest score in the match was 30 – was also equally vital. West Indies rode on the efforts of Mervyn Dillon and Philo Wallace, the beefy Barbadian opener, and surprised many by beating both Pakistan and India to reach the final. Australia were done in by Sachin Tendulkar’s brilliance – not for the first time that year. His 141 and 4 for 38 singlehandedly dumped them out.ICC Knock-Out in Kenya, 2000Chris Cairns chose the perfect moment to pull a rabbit out of the hat, as his explosive century helped New Zealand to their first victory in a major one-day final. Cairns missed the semi-final against Pakistan, another thrilling run-chase, and played in the final despite a dodgy knee. But had it not been for Cairns, New Zealand would surely have struggled to get past a buoyant Indian side. Sourav Ganguly had recently been appointed captain after the match-fixing imbroglio, and he nearly made the tournament his own. With 348 runs in four matches – Saeed Anwar was second on the list with 209 – he piloted the batting with some intoxicating strokeplay. Two other Indians burst on to the international stage in this event. Yuvraj Singh’s stunning 84 on debut thwarted Australia, while Zaheer Khan arrived with his heady mix of swinging yorkers and bubbly aggro. Ganguly’s hundred in the semi-final did South Africa in, while his 117 in the final seemed to have sealed it. But then Cairns sneaked in through the back door.ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka, 2002For the first time, a Test-playing nation was chosen as the venue for staging the Champions Trophy (Bangladesh weren’t part of the Test family in 1998). Also, unlike previous years, the teams were divided into four pools. Eventually, the rain ruined what had been an entertaining tournament, and forced Sri Lanka and India to share the title. Sri Lanka proved yet again that they were close to unbeatable at home, as their phalanx of spinners engineered a crushing seven-wicket win over Australia in the semi-final. India, who had recently triumphed in the NatWest Series in England, continued their purple patch, with Virender Sehwag emerging as one of the stars of the tournament. South Africa, not for the first time, choked when the semi-final was all but wrapped up. With 70 required, Herschelle Gibbs retired hurt after a dazzling 116, and the rest crumbled in he face of some inspired Indian bowling and fielding. And the bowling hero? Sehwag, of course.

Rashid Latif, the Pakistan captain, has been fined 20% of his match fee due to Pakistan’s slow over-rate in the third one-day international of the NatWest Challenge at Lord’s. According to Times.com.pk, a Pakistan-based web newspaper, Sami-ul-Hasan, the media manager of the team, also confirmed that the rest of the side were fined 10% of their match fee by Gundappa Viswanath, the match referee.The report stated that in 227 minutes of playing time, Pakistan bowled only 48.3 overs, as against the requirement of 54 overs. Despite being given a 13-minute allowance for various stoppages in play, Pakistan were still found to be three overs short.

The Asian Test Championship continues to cruise without India’s participation.The only difference made by big brother India’s withdrawal was to reduce the championship from a ‘quadrangular’ to a ‘triangular.’ However, what made India act as a ‘step brother’ is a mystery. The reasons advanced by the sports minister don’t seem very convincing.One is compelled to accept the common man’s theory reinforced by the opinion of some top cricketers that ‘India is scared of losing to Pakistan’.I feel one should show some sympathy towards India as many of the top players are unfit and have just gone through the humiliation of a 2-1 thrashing at the hands of Sri Lanka. Thus, pundits muse, how can a timid outfit pick up the courage to face its latest conqueror Sri Lanka and the Pakistanis in the ATC?Let us not forget the nerve centre of the Indian team rests in Sachin Tendulkar. As long as he is not fit to play, the team tends to remain in doldrums.Whatever the cause, the fact remains that India’s absence has taken away lot of charm and excitement from the tournament. Apart from lowering the quality of an important competition, the absence is causing a colossal financial loss to the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), a sports body dear to all Asian cricket countries.India’s absence from a crucial tournament designed to determine the ‘Asian test champions’ caused tremendous disappointment and anger in cricket playing countries of the region. Even some top cricketers like Imran Khan have demanded action against India for slipping out of a commitment, but does anyone really care?Lt Gen Tauqir Zia, Chairman PCB and the current President of the ACC, however, took the right decision to hold the tournament without India. The 1st match of the tournament was played between Pakistan and Bangladesh at the gorgeous newly built Multan Cricket Stadium, which Pakistan won by an innings and 264 runs. Creating lot of interest among the local population, the match drew a good crowd.Five Pakistan batsmen scored centuries equalling the record established earlier in 1954-55 in a match between Australia and the West Indies at Kingston. Bangladesh batsmen and the bowlers, both failed to impress. In their 1st innings total of 134 runs, the highest individual score was 19 while in the 2nd innings Habibul Bashar was able to score an unbeaten half century (56). Pakistan lost only 3 wickets in the one innings they batted. While the pace bowlers were wayward with no sting, the spinners lacked guile. The contest was a one sided affair.With such a glaring mismatch and the record of losing all the four test matches played till then, many observers of the game felt that Bangladesh had been granted test status rather prematurely. Looking like a confident and a hard working outfit, the Bangladesh captain as well as players accepted their weakness with absolute grace. Skipper Naimur Rahman was quite bold to acknowledge, ‘We do not care what people call us. We are a new Test nation and will learn and come up with time’.Their resolve to improve and face tough opponents with courage deserved respect. In the past we have seen Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in a similarly precarious condition, fighting for years to win their 1st test match. Bangladesh’s desire to improve at a quick pace is indicated by the fact that they have engaged a top trio of coaches comprising Javed Miandad (Pakistan), Andy Roberts (West Indies) and Trevor Chappell (Australia) to train the boys and to bring them up to the standards of other countries. Brimming with talent and full of determination, they are bound to improve with experience and due passage of time.In their 2nd encounter of the tournament Bangladesh lost to Sri Lanka at Colombo by an innings and 137 runs. Sri Lanka was flying high after achieving a convincing 2-1 victory over India. In the 3rd and last Test of the series, Sri Lanka handed India a humiliating defeat by an innings and 77 runs.Four of its players, Marvan Atapattu (108), Mahela Jayawardene (139), Hashan Tillakaratne (136*) and Thilan Samaraweera (103*) scored centuries. With a terrific haul of 11 wickets in the match, Muttiah Muralitharan demolished the Indian team. Bangladesh had to face such gladiators in the field.With Sri Lanka a far superior side, the encounter again proved to be a one sided affair. Although Bangladesh crumbled for 90 runs in the 1st innings it gave a better fight in the 2nd innings scoring an impressive 328. The redeeming factor for Bangladesh was a glorious century (114) by Mohammad Ashraful.Bangladesh shall have to swallow the bitter pill of losing all the five tests played so far, for the sake of gaining experience and the far and wide hope of a victory sometimes in future. The present Asian Test Championship is perhaps the best learning ground for them.One must appreciate the ACC for their firm resolve in staging the championship without India. One can only hope that India comes back in the fold soon.

Alastair Cook has challenged his young England team to take their chance for a memorable overseas series win in South Africa this winter, but admits that he is travelling with an unsettled and inexperienced batting line-up following the decision to dispense with the veteran Ian Bell.Speaking at Heathrow Airport ahead of England’s departure for their four-Test series, Cook insisted he would not be reading too much into South Africa’s comprehensive 3-0 defeat against India, their first away series loss for nine years.However, he did concede that a victory over the No.1-ranked Test nation in the world, in their own conditions, would rank among his finest achievements of his career. And, he added, since the retirement of a raft of their all-time greatest players, the South Africa side that lines up at Durban on Boxing Day for the first Test will be much changed from the one that Cook himself has yet to beat in a Test series in three previous attempts since 2008.”When you lose the greats of the game, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Makhaya Ntini, Mark Boucher … there’s always going to be a bit of evolution in a side but trying to replace them is nigh on impossible, especially in one generation,” Cook said. “They are certainly a different side to what I have played in the past.”England will arrive in Johannesburg on Friday with plenty of optimism but a fair amount of uncertainty as well. Bell’s run drought means that the only guaranteed starter in England’s middle order is Joe Root at No. 4, and Cook called on the unfamiliar faces in the batting line-up to make a name for themselves in the coming weeks.”We haven’t quite got a settled top seven, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But with Gary [Ballance] coming back, and Nick [Compton] coming back, they’ve had a taste of it before, and it’s a real opportunity for people to stake their claim.”On the absence of Bell, Cook conceded that it had been a tough decision to drop a player with 118 caps and more than a decade of Test experience. However, he backed his team-mate to capitalise on a rare winter break and come back refreshed in the new year, just as Cook himself had done this time last year, following his sacking as England one-day captain ahead of the World Cup.”I sat in on that selection meeting, it was a fairly long one when you are talking about a player of Ian’s class and experience,” Cook said. “We will miss his experience but he would be the first to admit he hasn’t quite scored the runs over the last couple of years.”But certainly you might see him score them again,” he added. “It’s a weird thing, missing a tour might do him the world of good. He’s been on pretty much every tour since 2000, whether it’s with England Under-19s, the Lions or the full side. So a bit of time away from the game might do him the world of good.”I look back a year ago, when I was left out of the World Cup. It was disappointing at the time, gutting at the time, but those few months away from the firing line, as it was, away from cricket and a time to be at home, actually gave me a real good understanding and a new lease of life. Hopefully that can be the same for Ian.”At the opposite end of the experience spectrum is Cook’s probable opening partner for the Durban Test. The uncapped Alex Hales was last month identified by Trevor Bayliss, England’s head coach, as the likely man to replace Moeen Ali at the top of the order and if that is the case, he will become Cook’s eighth opening partner since the retirement of Andrew Strauss in 2012.Hales made his mark in the recent ODI series in the UAE, scoring his maiden 50-over hundred to help England seal an impressive 3-1 series win over Pakistan. That followed on from his hard-hitting hundred against Sri Lanka in the World Twenty20 in Bangladesh two years ago, and despite a quiet home ODI series against Australia in September, Cook believes that his potential new partner has learnt a lot in recent months.Alastair Cook speaks to the media ahead of England’s tour of South Africa•Getty Images

“You can’t guarantee anyone a first-Test place when you are sitting in a hotel,” said Cook. “But judging by the way the selection has gone he’s got a great opportunity. We’ve seen in county cricket that he can go on a run and be destructive. He will have experienced a lot, from not scoring too many runs in the Australia one-day series to really bouncing back and leading in the one-dayers [in the UAE].”As so often in South Africa, the quality of the fast bowling might prove to be the difference between the teams, and on that count, England begin the tour knowing that Vernon Philander will definitely miss the first two Tests, while Dale Steyn is also struggling with injury and is not yet a certain starter.With James Anderson and Stuart Broad heading to South Africa with their reputation as a partnership arguably at an all-time high following their heroics in adversity in the UAE, the news that Steven Finn is already battling back from the stress-related foot injury that ruled him out of the Pakistan tour is a major fillip for the squad.Last week, Finn bowled off his full run-up for the first time since his injury and has been cleared to take part in England Lions’ Twenty20 series against Pakistan A.”He won’t be ready to bowl in the first Test, but Steven has made big strides over the last couple of weeks,” Cook said. “He’s up and running a couple of weeks ahead of what we thought he’d be, and that’s really encouraging for him.””It would mean a huge amount [to beat South Africa],” he added. “That is the challenge we’ve got ahead of us. Reflecting back to Pakistan, something inside of me says that was an opportunity that we couldn’t quite take. I wonder if this is an opportunity we can take.”The 2-0 in Pakistan hurts me quite a lot as I don’t feel we were that far off. But now we’ve got another chance to win away from home.”

Arsenal have been handed a ‘huge’ boost in their pursuit of Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins, Football Insider report.

The Lowdown: Regular under Gerrard

The 26-year-old has been a regular under Steven Gerrard since November, missing just one of the last 14 Premier League games.

He recently netted his first Premier League goal in 2022 at the seventh attempt, helping Villa to a much-needed 2-0 win at Brighton last weekend.

Villa also have Danny Ings on the books in the Midlands as a senior attacking option, and it seems as if Watkins could be on the move in the summer.

The Latest: Source’s update

Football Insider shared a story regarding Watkins on Thursday morning ahead of Villa’s match with Southampton on Saturday afternoon.

They were informed by a recruitment source that Gerrard is unconvinced on Watkins, and, as a result, the club will listen to offers for the player in the summer. That has been described as a ‘huge’ boost for the Gunners, who have the England international on their shortlist.

The Verdict: Interesting…

Watkins hasn’t lived up to the heights of his first campaign as a Villa player, netting six times in 22 appearances compared to 14 in 37 in 2020/21.

He has seemed to struggle under Gerrard, especially in 2022, but it is still interesting that the club are willing to move him on after just two years.

FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. Subscribe FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.

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You’d expect Gerrard may have someone specific in mind to come in if this is truly the case, as he looks to put his mark on the squad ahead of a first full season in charge.

In other news: Lange plots revenge on Tottenham as Villa now make pre-contract move for ‘extraordinary’ player. 

Matthew Hayden falls to S Sreesanth during the first ODI at Bangalore © Getty Images

Matthew Hayden will aim to shed his Twenty20 batting outlook for the remainder of the one-day series in India. Hayden, who thrashed a tournament-high 265 runs in South Africa, struggled to adjust in the opening ODI in Bangalore on Saturday, scoring 34 before a rash shot to S Sreesanth.”I will look to take my time over the course of the next games, get my tempo right and get set into the game and look to kind of advance from there,” Hayden said in The Australian. “I did feel my reins were well and truly tucked in close and I wasn’t dealing well with the frustrations of the subcontinent where play seems to stop and start.”Hayden called his innings “disjointed” and was surprised by the changes after the new experiences in South Africa. “If there wasn’t a bloke stuffing around with the sightscreen or somebody wandering in front of it, or [Michael Clarke’s] injury, it was just a really unusual tempo coming off Twenty20 cricket where the game is almost over by the 20-over mark,” he said. “The whole night was like the really, it was just phenomenally different to a Twenty20 comp.”More battles loom between Hayden and Sreesanth over the series and the bowler said he had respect for the Australians “outside the ground, not inside”. Sreesanth has dismissed Hayden twice in a row and is aiming for five wickets on his home ground in the second match on Tuesday.Hayden welcomed Sreesanth’s attitude. “Aggression is part of the game, it’s something we have been trying to preach to the world about,” Hayden said in the Daily Telegraph. “I am glad to see other countries following Australia’s lead and becoming more aggressive. If there is not aggression out in the middle, why are we playing the game?”

The following is a transcript of an interview carried on Cricinfo in 1999

Polly Umrigar: lost his battle against lymph cancer © Cricinfo

CI I have with me, an all time great and one who contributed a lot to Indian cricket in all forms and at all levels – Polly Umrigar, who served at various level of cricket as a manager, coach for Indian cricket. Welcome to the show, Sir. Let us have an introduction about your playing days and how you started your cricketing career?Polly Umrigar Well, I was in Solapur and I was hardly 12 or 13 years old and went to see the seniors playing. The captain of the side said he was short of a player and asked if I would join the side. I replied in the affirmative and was keen to get into the game. The position they gave me to field was deep fine leg. The wicketkeeper was not a good one and was leaving the balls. I had to chase the balls to see that it did not go for four. After the match, the captain said “Polly you have a good cricket future. You are a very promising boy.” I still remember these words.Later a gentlemen called Pandey asked me why I was wasting the time and asked me to join in his coaching camp. In Solapur, we had only matting wickets and we had two sessions for three hours each. They taught how to bowl the inswinger, outswinger and so on. They made a circle in that matting and asked us to bowl in the circle and would have to count it by ball by ball. That helped me to maintain the length when I was playing Ranji and national and higher levels.Even when we were batting, a six feet tall man – one Mr. Singh bowled with the new ball from few steps. During those time we didn’t have protection like helmet and thigh pads. So many times I have been hit on my arms and thighs. Believe it or not certain times when I was moving a little bit, our coach who stood behind the nets, asked me not to move. Really they grilled me a lot. As my father was transferred to Bombay from Solapur, I came to Bombay. After joining school, I was unable to play for them because when you come from outside you couldn’t play for the first year. Hence I could not get a chance in the city matches also. After I joined St. Xavier’s College, one of our coaches Mr. Bhagadur Kapadia saw me and he asked me to play for his club. He never disturbed my batting style for otherwise you would have seen a different Polly Umrigar. Clubs were approaching me and I was playing for bigger clubs to play bigger matches. In my opinion, coaches play a vital role for any cricketer.CI Coming to your cricketing area, when you made your debut against West Indies in 1948-49, you put on 70 odd runs with Dattu Phadkar that too when India was in great trouble. What was that experience like?PU Before answering that question, I would like to say something about the way how I got into the side. There was one All India University match against the touring West Indies side and I got 130 runs in that match. The man who came into the dressing-room was none other than [George] Headley. He was pleased and told me that “You have wonderful cricket in you. Keep it up.” To get something like this from a top man was very, very encouraging for me. I was selected for the Delhi Test where I was in the 14 but couldn’t get a chance to play. In the next Test in Bombay which was my home ground, I was selected in the XI. With India in deep trouble, Phadkar asked me not to go for shots and asked me to stay until lunch. If I remember correctly, I scored 30 not out till lunch and we pulled India out of danger. It was the first time in Test cricket when I felt that I could also achieve something in the game.CI The match against England at Madras, when you scored 130 not out in the 1951-52 series which in fact that was the first ever Test win for India. What was your experience?PU I was in the 14. Hemu Adhikari met with an accident and he was not able to play. So, the skipper said “You are in the side”. I grabbed the opportunity with both hands. I sort of stuck over there and got 130 not out. Not only that we also won our first Test match.CI What was your feeling when you became a first Indian to score a double hundred in Test cricket against Kiwis in Bombay?PU Against New Zealand …I was the skipper and I was the first man to get 223. I was very very pleased and very, very happy. Somebody making a mark in cricket and it stays there.CI Tell us something about your experiences while playing for India?PU Well, apart from cricket I play hockey and football too. During my time, when I was leading or playing for Bombay, we had a very strong batting side and would get a minimum of 500 runs. That solidity was there in the batting, which sort of made Bombay go and win the national championship final so many times. After I settled in Bombay, so many clubs were approaching me to play for them. The first entry I made in a big match was at the Pentangular which was played in 1944-45 and 1945-46 as an offspinner. After the Pentangular was stopped I started playing Ranji in successful fashion till my retirement.Here I would like to add something about my Test experience especially against Pakistan in Delhi in 1961. I have not been captain after the Madras incident. When Nari Contractor was injured, I was standing in the slips and watching Hanif Mohammed batting. He seemed to be a little bit shaky against the movement of the ball. If I remember correctly that time Ramakant Desi and Bapu Nadkarni were bowling. In fact Bapu was admired by the great Sobers. Hence the next morning, I called Bapu and told him he was so stingy of giving away the runs. But try and get wickets. Soon I called Bapu to bowl and follow my advice. We almost won the match. Fazal Mahmood was not watching the game. He was sitting in the corner. In the evening, he said `Thank God, Polly is not captain of India’. In the Test match against MCC at Calcutta the next season, I remember again Nari got injured and I took over the captaincy. When Barrington was batting I asked Ramakant to bowl short. Barrington hooked and Durrani took a good catch. After I left the ground, people asked me come to the centre for getting an ovation. Really these things are long remembered. When I was in good form with both bat and ball I had planned to retire.CI How did you use your earlier experience in the Bombay side?PU When I was leading or playing for Bombay, we had a good batting, bowling and fielding side. Normally we always tried to make the batsmen tired for he will get out easily. On the morning, we used to wish our captain by going to his room and in the evening both teams would sit together for a chat. But the next morning we were very serious about the game. This is how we developed the team spirit.CI After you stopped playing cricket were you involved closely with any cricketing activities?PU After 1962, I stopped playing and entered into administration, as a selector of the Bombay Cricket Association (MCA) and then I became the manager of the Indian team. I was also in the managing committee of the association, before becoming the honorary joint secretary of the MCA. Later, when Mr Wankhede approached me for building a stadium, I was involved in the building of the Wankhede stadium and spent almost every day from nine to nine for it.CI Well Sir… Can you tell us about your book on coaching. How does it work for youngesters regarding coaching and batting?PU I have written it in a simple format and gave [the] book to all the schools, all the associations even outside the board. I just want to give something back to the game, to the younger generation. This success has tempted me to bring another book on preparation of pitches.

International duty has taken Ricky Ponting away from Tasmania © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting will play his first game for Tasmania in two seasons when he starts the ING Cup match against Queensland at the Gabba on Saturday. The lack of appearances from Ponting, the Australia captain, has upset his state as he used breaks in the international calendar to rest instead of turn out for the Tigers.Ponting will be in charge of the side for their opening one-day game of the season and will have Michael Di Venuto as his deputy. Adam Polkinghorne will also play his first limited-overs match for his state after a two-year absence.Jimmy Maher, the Queensland captain, will become the state’s most capped one-day player when the Bulls field a full-strength line-up including the Test players Matthew Hayden and Shane Watson. Stuart Law is the current holder with 85 matches, but Maher, who is the limited-overs competition’s leading run-scorer with 3661, is on course to become the first Queenslander to play a century of first-class and domestic one-day games.”Stuey Law is one of the all-time greats for Queensland so to pass him in any regard is a great thrill,” Maher said. “The fact we are playing at the Gabba as well as it being one of the rare occasions when we’ve got everyone on deck is even more special. We didn’t get our season off to best of starts last week so our focus is pretty firmly on performing well as a group this time.”TasmaniaGeorge Bailey, Travis Birt, David Dawson (wk), Michael Dighton, Michael Di Venuto, Xavier Doherty, Adam Griffith, Ben Hilfernhaus, Scott Kremerskothen, Adam Polkinghorne, Ricky Ponting (capt), Damien Wright.

10.15am England 568 and 71 for 0 (Trescothick 34*, Strauss 27*) lead West Indies 416 by 223 runs
Scorecard

Andrew Strauss: can he make it four hundreds at lord’s?© Getty Images

Despite an iffy weather forecast it dawned fine in north London today, and England’s openers will soon be out in the middle again, looking to build on a lead which is already substantial at 223. In an ideal world Michael Vaughan would pile on another 250 runs or so and declare around tea-time, giving himself at least four sessions to bowl West Indies out again on a slowish pitch which is taking a little turn.But Plan A, as Brian Lara has discovered, doesn’t alweays work. Despite the currently cloud-free sky, the weather may yet intervene. But piling on the runs isn’t impossible on this pitch, as England’s openers demonstrated last night, putting on 71 in 22 overs without apparent effort. Marcus Trescothick’s first two shots, which he eased through the covers for fours, might have caused the bowler, Tino Best, a restless night.In the first innings West Indies’ bowling was wayward, and their fielding worse. Lara will want a better collective effort from his men today, and maybe a little help from the clouds, which have largely deserted him since that overcast first morning, when he put England in only for the cumulo-nimbus to roll away amd reveal acres of blue sky.

43.3 overs West Indies 249 for 1 (Hinds 103*, Lara 75*) beat Australia 247 for 8 (Lehmann 107, Gayle 5-46) by nine wicketsWavell Hinds scored a magnificent 103 not out, his second century in three days, and Chris Gayle emulated Viv Richards’s feat at Dunedin in 1986-87, with five wickets and a half-century in the same match, as West Indies cruised to a nine-wicket victory over Australia in the seventh and final one-day match in Grenada. The icing on the cake was applied by Brian Lara, who cracked Darren Lehmann for three consecutive sixes to rampage to victory, and Australia’s all-conquering tour had ended in abject defeat.

Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels celebrate another wicket

Let it not be forgotten that the series had been done and dusted after four games, but there was still plenty pride at stake. Ricky Ponting himself had described the final three matches as a series within a series. But now, after 21 victories in consecutive matches, Australia have lost three in a row to the same team for the first time since the Texaco Trophy series against England in 1997.Australia, Lehmann excused, were off the pace throughout the match. They began their innings in a tangle, as Lara manipulated his spin bowlers to wonderful effect, and they finished in a heap. Hinds and Gayle became the first West Indian opening pair to post three figures against Australia in one-day cricket, and Hinds and Lara compiled a second, even more vigorous, century partnership in the same innings.Australia were visibly shattered by the end. Their fortunes were summed up by two men – Ricky Ponting, the man of the tour, who was unable to lead his team in the field after being clattered on the right hip early in his innings, and Jason Gillespie, who snarled and glared his way through ten economical overs, but dropped the most outrageous sitter at long-off when Hinds was on 76. With Lara at his bat-flinging best, it was hardly a match-turning moment, but it was the sort of chance that the World-Cup vintage Australians would have gobbled.They had been all at sea in the first 15 overs of the match. Unsettled by Lara’s unorthodox tactics, which involved a solitary opening over from the offspin of Marlon Samuels, Matthew Hayden (8) clipped Merv Dillon straight down the throat of Dave Bernard jr on the midwicket boundary (a replica of his dismissal on Friday), before Adam Gilchrist played back to Samuels with uncertain footwork and inside-edged onto his stumps for 5 (18 for 2).

Darren Lehmann: his fourth one-day century was in vain

Had it not been for a quick-footed contribution from Lehmann, Australia would have been even deeper in the mire. Lehmann is an unlikely understudy for the ultra-athletic Michael Bevan, but he used the crease well to nurdle the spinners and clip the quicks off his pads. He limited himself to four fours and one out-of-context six in his first 70 runs, before unfurling his reverse-sweep and booming drive to crack six more fours in 20 balls. He found good support from Andrew Symonds (48) and Brad Hogg, who played a number of air shots early on, but eventually began connecting with his deft sweeps and flicks, finishing with an important 53 from 58 balls.The final total was some 30 runs more than West Indies might have hoped to concede, after their domination of the early exchanges. But it mattered little when Hinds and Gayle came together at the start of West Indies’s reply. As usual, it was Gayle who made the early running. He nearly kneecapped umpire Doctrove at point with a blistering cut shot in the second over, before resuming his feud with Brett Lee, cracking him for a pair of fours in the fifth over. Gayle, who suffers from a heart complaint, tired visibly after his early exertions, and at one stage had to take several minutes’ rest and a drink of water before continuing. But continue he did, raising his fifty with a mighty six over long-off, as Symonds’s first over disappeared for 13 runs.But Symonds soon had his revenge, though not before Hinds had thumped him for a six of his own, as Gayle was deceived and bowled by a yorker-length quicker ball (116 for 1). Gayle’s innings had lasted 68 balls with one six and eight fours, but there was no respite for Australia, as Lara strode to the middle. Hinds cranked up a gear, slamming Brad Hogg over long-on for the second six over his innings, and was deservingly named Man of the Series in the post-match presentations.For Australia, a five-week break cannot come soon enough. They have been on the road virtually non-stop since November, and with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe to follow, they shouldn’t have to exert themselves too much in the next few months. West Indies, on the other hand, are riding the crest of a wave, and Sri Lanka are likely to find the going pretty tough when they arrive next week.