WORLD CUP CRICKET : QUIZTION OF THE DAY - 20

WORLD CUP CRICKET QUIZ:

April 1st, 2007 : Quiztion of the Day - 20

As expected Australia registered a comfortable win against Bangladesh and proved that the 2005 Nat West Trophy loss at Cardiff was just one of those off-days. Glen McGrath’s intelligent bowling along with his trademark line and length was just too much for the young and inexperienced batting line-up of Bangladesh as they could make just 104 for 6 in their allotted quota of overs after Ponting won the toss and invited them to bat first in the rain restricted 22 overs a side game. McGrath had an unbelievable spell of 3 for 16 from his five overs and in the process became the highest wicket taker in the World Cup erasing Wasim Akram’s record of 55 wickets. McGrath took just 33 matches to achieve the record whereas it took 38 games for Wasim Akram to set that mark. A target of 105 was too easy for the Australia with Hayden batting with the best ODI form of his life. Both Gilchrist and Hayden knocked off those runs fewer than 14 overs for a convincing 10 wicket victory. Ricky Ponting too achieved a land mark of recording 16 wins out of 16 matches that he led Australia surpassing Clive Lloyd’s 15 wins out of 17 matches from 1975 to 1983. Incidentally both those losses came against Kapil Dev’s India in 1983.

So Australia is now set out to match their record of not losing a single match to conquer the title as they did in 2003. Whenever the Media and Pundits write-off their ability Australia has this knack of coming back strong and silencing their critics. The five consecutive losses they suffered at the hands of England in CB Series finals and against New Zealand in Chappell-Hadlee Trophy now seem to be long forgotten.

Today’s ‘Quiztion of the Day’ relates to an incident which at that time was thought would derail Australia’s quest for defending the title in 2003. But they came back strong and won every match of that tournament. Here it is:

An Australian batsman said that he was fuelled by the anger and confusion created by a particular incident before the match. He attacked the bowling right from the word go and rescued his team after Australia was put into bat first and was in a precarious position when he came into bat. His counter-attacking innings not only let Australia post a huge total and win the match very convincingly but also won him a man of the match award. What incident, match and the batsman are being referred here?

Remember to email your answers for each quiz individually to vijay@dreamcricket.com with the subject line as 'Quiztion of the Day - X' (X being the question number) through out the tournament duration. Results will be first posted on http://www.dreamcricket.com/ website within a week of the World Cup Final.

Cheers...