With utter dominance of the kind rarely seen before building up to and culminating in the total annihilation of the South Africans, Australians have shown the World the reason they are the No. 1 team (and after the semi-final, there is no doubt that they are No.1, whether the rankings agree or not). The kind of defeat inflicted on the Africans yesterday and the kind of aggression and power the Aussies produce could give goosebumps to anyone destined to face them.
If Lanka do beat them tomorrow, they would have earned a deserved title. Let us see if they have any chance of doing that, by analyzing the Aussie performances against Lanka in the last decade.
For the Australian batting department, Ponting, Clarke and Symonds have performed
well against Sri Lanka in the pas, with basting averages deviating by 9, 23 and 12 runs from overall Australian team batting average of 42 against Sri Lanka. As far as the 50 to 100 conversion rates are concerned, Gilchrist leads the pack with a whopping 67% conversion. So if he settles down, he is sure to notch up a biggie. Not far behind him, Ponting and Symonds line up with a conversion rate of 33% and 20%.
In the bowling department, Tait has played Sri Lanka only once, i.e., in the last stage where he was expensive but took the important wickets of Dilshan and Arnold. Also, in the last match against Africa, Tait claimed 2 wickets but was again, expensive. So if at all there is a weak link in the Aussie lineup, it could be Tait and can be targeted by the Sri Lankan batsmen.
Bracken has performed best of the lot with a bowling average against Sri Lanka which is better than the team’s overall bowling average of 27 by a good 14 runs. Further threats are McGrath and Hogg given that they have bowling experience and have claimed 35 and 28 wickets against Lanka. So Mcgrath, Bracken and Hogg remain the key bowlers whereas Tait and the 5th bowler (Symonds, Watson) are the ones the Lankans need to make the most of.
The Aussie team as whole has performed well till now against Lanka with a success rate of 70% as compared to their overall success rate of 64%. Australia have given away a maximum of 343 runs in a single innings against Lanka, while their least score has been 163, which is similar to the corresponding figures of Sri Lanka. That leaves little to choose between the two, assuming Sri Lanka hit their form and remain composed unlike South Africa.
Hayden, playing in the form of his life (by Hayden’s standards, that’s saying a lot) and McGrath playing his last match, they will remain in spotlight. Considering their performance in the tournament, it is likely that they will both clash for the Player of the Tournament title with Hayden scoring above 600 runs so far and McGrath capturing more than 25 wickets already. Here are two players who are undoubtedly going to play a decisive role in the match. The only catch for Australia is that they are yet to face a batting collapse, and thus remain untested in a testing situation throughout the tournament. Their performance under pressure remains unclear and thus is a question that can be asked of the Australian armor. One that they will answer rather emphatically, if we are to go by their recent run of form.