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‘Plum’eludes England once more West Indies were heading for a certain-looking dismal defeat under rapidly darkening grey skies of London on 147 for 8 in the 34th over but Brown and Bradshaw, not known previously for their batting dexterity refused the bad light offered by the umpires and defied all logic to power the West Indians to an enthralling win and smack it on the face of heavy favourites. Bradshaw who hit the winning boundary with a cover drive off Alex Wharf also took two wickets with his left arm medium pacers and was adjudged the man of the match. West Indies highest scorer was left hander Shivnarine Chanderpaul who made 47 off 66 balls with six boundaries after the West Indies top order had succumbed to an excellent England pace attack in the early part of the innings. Almost all hope for Windies had gone when Chanderpaul became the eighth batsman to be dismissed, but what no one expected was the drama that unfolded after that. All rounder Andrew Flintoff took three prized wicket for 38. His victims included Ramnaresh Sarwan who was later adjudged the man of the tournament after coming into the finals with two back to back man of the match knocks, world record holder Brian Lara and key all rounder Dwayne Bravo. Earlier Marcus Trescothick hammered a brilliant century as England batted. England had made maximum use of the opportunity to host the championships by exploiting the weather conditions shrewdly and clinch their first major cricket tournament victory. It was obvious by the timing of the tournament which was scheduled at the end of the summer and coming into the autumn. Many teams especially from Asia felt the sting of the English chill before they were knocked out of the tournament. It would have been just the icing on the cake for England's excellent summer that saw them win seven out of seven test matches played and their test ranking soar to an all time high of second. Following their defeat yesterday, England remain with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh as the only test teams not to have won either the World Cup or the ICC Champions Trophy known as the mini world cup featuring all ten test teams. Trescothick who batted almost through out the 50 overs was the seventh man out, run out spectacularly by West Indian skipper Brian Lara who had a superb day in the field also pulling off two outstanding catches. All rounder Wavell Hinds bowled best for West Indies taking 3 for 24 off his ten overs while Bradshaw captured two wickets. Media
facilities... my foot The main press box could not house more than 50 journalists and it is obvious that this is not adequate to cater to the final of a tournament that featured all ten playing countries of the world in addition to the two best non-test playing countries. It is a big question in the first place why the ICC chose to offer England the chance to host such a high profile tournament if they don't have adequate facilities. It should be remembered that the Sri Lankan Cricket Board built a special air-conditioned media enclosure at the R. Premadasa Stadium for the previous edition of the tournament in 2002 and Sri Lanka successfully accommodated more than 200 journalists at the venue of the finals. As England had entered the final, the press box overflowed with English journalists while the West Indian press was almost non-existent. Other journalists from around the world who had travelled thousands of miles to report the tournament were relegated to overflow areas, and Sri Lankan media men were pushed to chairs under open skies. Needless to say reporting a match is impossible without basics such as a cover from persistent rain, a table, a scorer's statistics, a television monitor to view replays or a power base to plug in the notebook computer. But ICC officials were oblivious to the predicament of the reporters, and they apparently adopted a "don't care" attitude whether the tournament is covered in international media or not. |
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