While noone could fault Australia's record leading into the final, the truer light of hindsight illuminates the weaknesses fully exploited by England this morning. Whereas a win means focusing on the brutal power Australia could leverage to close out a contest in a smattering of overs, a loss shows up the pre-existing faults: the tendency to collapse; Clarke's inability to score quickly enough; Haddin inexplicably playing second drop; the irksome slogging of the big hitters; and the brittleness of their fourth and fifth bowlers if a side still had wickets in hand.

England, for their part, were never dominating the contest, but with an efficiency bred of sharp fielding, intelligent, varied bowling, patient batting, clean hitting and the ounce of luck you always need, they were superior without needing to step outside their comfort zone. Worthy winners then, particularly their middle-order - Pietersen, Collingwood, Morgan - who made the win look so easy.

As for the tournament. Like the last T20 World Cup, the format gave teams scope to build momentum without ever feeling like it was too long. A case could be made for reversing the mix of groups (3 groups of 4, followed by 2 groups of 3), to bring more meaning into the first round, and give the minnows more games. A more important reform, I feel would be the introduction of regional championships/qualifiers to give more teams an opportunity to play at the top level, without diluting the world cup.

Perhaps though, it is best not to let authorities tinker; a cursory glance at the forthcoming F50 World Cup makes you wonder whether administrators are using the World Cup to kill that form of the game. (We can only hope) The decision to spend a full four weeks wittling 14 teams down to the big-8 test teams is pure idiocy, driven by nothing more than the perceived need to keep India in the tournament for as long as possible. Not that it matters to me. If this T20 World Cup has taught me anything, it is that I made the right decision abandoning the fifty over version half a dozen years ago.

Ratings at 17th May 2010			Form	Games
1	Australia	2097.6	-1.2	21.0
2	England	2023.1	49.0	19.2
3	Pakistan	2013.1	-1.9	20.4
4	South Africa	2011.7	-28.2	18.3
5	Sri Lanka	1969.7	-34.4	18.2
6	New Zealand	1958.5	3.1	22.1
7	India	1952.4	-22.0	13.3
8	West Indies	1896.4	-10.5	17.6
9	Zimbabwe	1853.0	41.1	7.0
10	Bangladesh	1737.1	-0.1	9.0
11	Ireland	1580.7	-10.9	18.5
12	Afghanistan	1527.4	14.0	19.5
13	Netherlands	1493.3	-30.7	9.0
14	Canada	1484.9	-56.1	9.8
15	Bermuda	1469.6	-39.9	0.8
16	Scotland	1460.5	-28.5	12.5
17	Kenya	1458.0	17.6	9.9
18	U.S.A.	1445.9	-52.1	5.0
19	U.A.E.	1370.1	23.7	17.5
20	Oman	1116.1	22.5	8.5
21	Uganda	1063.1	24.4	6.4
22	Kuwait	1043.0	2.6	8.5
23	Nepal	1005.0	12.5	7.0
24	Namibia	1000.0	0.0	0.0
25	Malaysia	946.9	-31.3	7.0
26	Hong Kong	907.2	-46.9	7.0
27	Singapore	841.0	-9.4	7.0
28	Qatar	836.0	30.5	7.0
29	Bahrain	702.3	-8.8	6.0
30	Saudi Arabia	614.4	35.2	7.0
31	China	162.6	-50.0	5.0

Cricket - Ratings - T20 17th May, 2010 17:56:57   [#] 

Comments

T20 Ratings - May 17th 2010
'the irksome slogging of the big hitters' I have a problem with this with all teams. I hate watching good batsmen play really revolting swipes.

Mahela J was a breath of fresh air.

Mind you, nothing annoys me more than the Clarke /Haddin axis at 3 and 4. Annoys me and mystifies me. Its like Nielsen and Clarke work things out on a theoretical level and pay no attention to what has gone on in the past x no of games as regards these things being an example of someone's real skill level or aptitude.
Vim  20th May, 2010 02:24:53  

T20 Ratings - May 17th 2010
Like in the IPL, the World Cup seemed to be mostly free of ugly slogs. Most of the high-scoring batsmen were playing aggressively, but trying to minimize the risk.

But some of the Australians, White, in particular, seemed to spend to be trying to heave every ball for six against Pakistan, without much success. Five sixes and no fours tell its own story; he is a better player than that. Not that it can be easy following after Clarke.
Russ  20th May, 2010 18:19:32