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The final test

HAVING REGISTERED EIGHT wins in a row — most, if not all, of them in an emphatic fashion — India has earned the right to play Australia for cricket's greatest prize. When Sourav Ganguly and his men step on to the Wanderers cricket ground on Sunday, they will be aware that the World Cup is only one tantalising match away from their grasp. They will also know that the team that stands between them and the Cup is a truly formidable one, possibly the finest one-day side in the history of the game. If the odds favour Australia, it is simply because it is a substantially better team, spiked with generous quantities of talent, driven by a ceaseless hunger to win and shot through with a hard and unforgiving professionalism. But as anyone even remotely acquainted with the game will know, one-day cricket is a truly unpredictable game, the history of such contests littered with the defeated bodies of reigning champions, odds-on favourites and ostensibly unbeatable sides. This is a game after all where the difference between victory and defeat can hang on the most slender and seemingly insubstantial of things: a few lusty heaves of the bat, a few turns of the ball, a lunge to pull off a spectacular catch or a quick pick up and throw to disturb the symmetry of the stumps.

Beating Australia will take some luck and take some doing, but India can take heart from a couple of things. After a dismal start to the tournament, the team seems to have got better with every passing game, giving the impression that it is peaking at the right moment. The bowling seems to have fallen into an enviable pattern and the batting has shown it has both the depth and the resilience to cope with the task. In contrast, after a blistering start, the mighty Australians seem to have developed some tiny chinks in their seemingly impregnable armour having appeared in danger of losing their later matches (versus England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka) before pulling themselves together to register victories. The form of Sachin Tendulkar, whose splendid run in the World Cup has included two superlative innings against Pakistan and New Zealand, is another factor which might help tilt the balance. No one is better placed to dictate terms to the relentless Australian attack than this pint-sized genius, whose batting is a wonderful amalgam of free-flowing aggression and studied technique, of raw talent and schooled education.

In getting to the finals, India has tripped up only once — and that to Australia. It has been a much smoother passage than that made by the victorious Indian side two decades earlier. In its journey to victory in 1983, Kapil Dev's team had lost along the way to West Indies and Australia and would have gone down certainly to Zimbabwe if it weren't for the Captain, who played an innings that must rank as one of the greatest rescue acts of all time. In comparison, Ganguly's side has marched into the finals on a much more authoritative note. It is difficult to make comparisons across decades, but it is arguable that India's opponents in 2003 (Ricky Ponting's Australians) are a much more professionally rounded side than the one it faced two decades earlier (Clive Lloyd's West Indians). But it is the manner in which India has reached the 2003 finals and not so much the mere fact that it is there that raises a real measure of hope. The Indian medium pace attack, which seemed pedestrian at best until recently, has stuck to an excellent line and length. And while Tendulkar alone may have climbed new peaks, the rest of the batting is not exactly labouring in the foothills with Ganguly, Dravid, Kaif, Singh and Sehwag chipping in, often at crucial times. Most important of all is that the team looks positive, keen and united by the desire to win, which is best exemplified by the new bonding technique — the huddle. Losing the final will be no disgrace for a team that has performed with so much spirit and determination. Winning it of course will make it the very toast of the nation.

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