An explosive 140 not out from captain Ricky Ponting inspired Australia to a crushing 125-run win over India in the World Cup final on Sunday with 10.4 overs to spare.
Ponting hit only one four in a relatively sedate half-century but then struck eight sixes as the defending champions raced to a record 359 for two after they were unexpectedly asked to bat by Saurav Ganguly.
The Australia skipper's score was the highest in a World Cup final, beating Viv Richards' 138 not out against England in 1979, and his eight sixes were also a World Cup record.
PHOTO: AFP
His team's total was the highest ever in eight finals, bettering their own 253 for five in 1987 and West Indies' 291 for eight from 60 overs in the inaugural 1975 tournament.
It was also Australia's biggest score ever in a one-day international after 109 runs came from the last 10 overs.
"It was a bit overdue," Ponting said of his innings after receiving the man-of-the-match award. "It was an enjoyable day. The batters took it up and put their hands up. There was a bit of sideways movement but we cashed in at the end."
PHOTO: REUTERS
India opener Virender Sehwag batted with immense confidence to reach 82 from 81 balls with three sixes and two fours before he was run out from a direct hit at the bowler's end by Darren Lehmann.
But although India batted brightly throughout they also kept losing wickets regularly, succumbing for 234 from 39.2 overs.
Winning Aussies
Australia, unbeaten in 17 successive one-day internationals as well as throughout the tournament, became the only team to win the World Cup three times after their previous successes in 1987 and 1999.
They would have lost them faster if Australia's fielding had been of its usual standard.
The match had been billed as a classic clash between Australia's exciting young speedster Brett Lee and India's master batsman Sachin Tendulkar. Perhaps, fittingly in a match India will be anxious to forget, they did not even meet.
Tendulkar pulled the fourth ball of Glenn McGrath's opening over for four, then tried an injudicious hook off the next. The ball hit the splice of the bat and lobbed up on the leg side, where McGrath all but pushed his teammates out of the way in his eagerness to complete the caught and bowled.
In a bizarre twist, India were given a glimmer of hope when storm clouds gathered over Johannesburg and Sehwag and Ganguly began to bat with feverish haste.
Ganguly, calculating quick runs on the board could possibly give India the match if the Duckworth-Lewis system for rain-shortened matches was called into operation, walked down the pitch to hit McGrath for a sliced six over point.
He raced to 24 from 25 balls before he was caught off Lee and Ponting, making similar calculations, called up left-arm spinners Brad Hogg and Darren Lehman in an effort to complete the 25 overs before a result could be declared.
A heavy rainstorm stopped play to the joy of the large India
contingent, hoping against hope that play would be abandoned before 25 overs were bowled which would have meant the match being replayed yesterday. But the ground was soon bathed in bright sunshine and the match resumed after only 25 minutes.
Green light
Australia had got away to a flying start when a 10-ball opening over from a nervous Zaheer Khan went for 15. Adam Gilchrist raced to 57 from 48 balls as the 100 came up in only the 14th over and Ganguly was forced to turn to Harbhajan Singh as early as the 10th over.
The quick-footed Ponting, whose team came into the match with a record winning streak of 16 in one-day internationals, was relatively subdued at the start, bringing up his half-century from 74 balls with just one four.
He immediately accelerated, hitting India's most dangerous bowler Harbhajan for consecutive sixes over wide long on, the second flying out of the ground.
Martyn stroked his way to an immaculate 88 not out with seven fours and a six in an unbroken partnership of 234, only three short of the World Cup record.
Meanwhile, in India, drunken cricket fans, dejected after India failed to lift threw crude home-made bombs and attacked a police vehicle in eastern India, injuring five policemen, police said yesterday.
Indian anger
The policemen were injured, one of them seriously, when an angry mob turned violent in Baragarh village in Hooghly district, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north-east of Calcutta, capital of the eastern state of West Bengal, police said.
West Bengal police deputy inspector Narayan Chandra Ghosh said that immediately after the match on Sunday, about 20 drunken youths hurled crude bombs at a mobile police vehicle.
Police fired live rounds to disperse them. Ghosh said there were no arrests.
He said a heated argument over India's defeat among youngsters in the industrial city of Howrah, about 20km west of Calcutta, also sparked violence early yesterday.
Ghosh said security outside Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly's
residence here was stepped up to check any demonstration by cricket fans.
Ganguly's house and that of teammate Mohammed Kaif were stoned by mobs after India were beaten by Australia early in the tournament.
Posters of the Indian players, decorated earlier with flowers and miniature lamps in clubs and big buildings, were ripped off walls and Indian flags were taken down, so disappointed were fans.
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