OMG, a repeat of 2003 WC final, 
Amazing performance by symonds and clarke at the end. So the thrashing predictions down under finally came true but at thte very end of the tour. Nonetheless good news for pakistan 
hey wasn’t this supposed to be a best of 3 finals series? 
It is. Australia won 2/0. the third final is only played if the first two matches are tied at 1/1.
wow, amazing performance by Australia once again. no wonder they’re the BEST!
well, as far as india is concerned…i’m not even going to bother… perhaps ODI series was too long. 
:k:
wel played Aust. and ind. :k:
whoa. So India lost two in a row. And the second one by such a large margin? Just heard it on the news that this is the second worst defeat of all time for India. What happened? They were supposed to be doing really well?
Good for Pakistan. Not that it matters much, but we will slaughter their team in any case, Inshallah. 
what is bothering that india is setting up a trend of letting aussies score in excess of 330 so often.....i mean in last one year, at least on 2 occasions, aussies score above 350 in 50 overs against india. As far as i remember, scoring 290-310 used to be very rare but lately india is letting aussies score above 350...........i mean even zimb does not let anyone score so many runs.... WI has worst bowling but even they manage to hold teams between 300-310..... then wut is wrong with india's bowling that it gets hammered so bad on a cruicial day. it is no fun to see a team scoring 350 to 360 runs because it put other team's batsmen under so much pressure and u already know the result of the match. it is not fair to expect tendulkar and co. to score 360 runs...it ruined the world cup final and it ruined yesterday final too because both matches were so one sided.Even a club level team does not allow so many runs to be scored. anyway, india should improve its bowling otherwise it will be a psycological problem for them when ever they play in final expecially agiant australia.A very sad end of india's tour and india deserved better than this extremely humiliating defeat. they played like bengal tigers during test matches and surprised every one.
sigh
No comments.
^ I say back to reality
Australia clinch series as India cave in](http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/040208/323/elhnl.html)
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia clinched the triangular international one-day cricket series in punishing style with a morale-shattering 208-run win over a disheartened India here.
Faced with chasing an Australian record 359 for five on Sunday, India buckled under the pressure of a long and gruelling tour to finish with a paltry 151 off just 33.2 overs, giving Australia an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the best of three finals series.
The result was a bitterly disappointing end to an otherwise successful Indian tour which saw them unlucky to only draw the Test series 1-1 against Australia and play highly-competitively in the early one-day series matches.
Australia, the world champions, proved they are still without peer in the one-day game when opener Matthew Hayden set them up with a masterful 126 off 122 balls.
A solid 67 by Damien Martyn and an astonishing middle-order stand by Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke which yielded 99 runs off 47 balls followed and by the end of the innings there was little doubt that the tri-nations championship would be theirs.
It was the highest score ever made in a one-day match in Australia and equaled Australia’s best score of 359 for two in the World Cup final against India in South Africa last year.
The Indians, who had seemed tired and restless in the lead-up to the finals series after a long and arduous 10-week tour, had already suffered a humiliating seven-wicket loss in the opening match of the finals series in Melbourne on Friday.
The third match scheduled for Brisbane on Tuesday will not now be played.
**In the end, Australia’s victory was one of the most lopsided in the annals of the game, being the eighth biggest in one-day history.
Australia’s huge tally means that three of their best five scores in one-day history have now come against India in the past year.**
In total, the home team won five of the six matches against India in the triangular-series this summer and under skipper Ricky Ponting, Australia has beaten India in 11 of 13 matches over the past year.
Hayden set the scene on Sunday with his powerful 126 which included 11 fours and three sixes before he was bowled by Sachin Tendulkar, attempting to reverse a straightforward delivery.
While that knock was impressive, Symonds and Clarke took the game to another level when they brazenly carved out 99 runs in the dying stages as India’s bowlers were exposed.
Captain Sourav Ganguly was at his wits’ end trying to find someone to stem the flood of runs as Symonds improvised his way to 66 off 39 balls and Clarke hit 33 not out off 20 balls.
India, despite a six from Virender Sehwag from the first ball of the game off the bowling of Jason Gillespie, never got to grips with the run-chase.
Both Sehwag and Tendulkar fell to a legside trap, with Lee taking two excellent catches off Gillespie before removing the dangerous VVS Laxman caught and bowled for just five.
Rahul Dravid’s run-out, executed by a rejuvenated Damien Martyn, and Ganguly’s tame dismissal, caught by Symonds off Ian Harvey, sunk India to 56 for five and effectively ended the contest.
For Australia, it was a timely return to their world championship form ahead of the Sri Lankan tour which starts on Friday.
Teen paceman Pathan reprimanded for mocking Martyn after dismissal](http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/040209/323/elj3k.html)
SYDNEY (AFP) - Young Indian fast bowler Irfan Pathan has been reprimanded for mocking Australia’s Damien Martyn after the batsman was caught out during the second cricket tri-series final in Sydney.
Match referee Clive Lloyd found Pathan, 19, guilty of a level one breach of the International Cricket Council’s Code of Conduct regarding unfair play over the incident, the ICC said in a statement Monday.
After Martyn was caught out for 67 on a ball bowled by Pathan, the teen paceman walked up to Martyn smiling broadly and applauding in a sarcastic gesture that clearly riled the Australian.
Pathan was reported for the incident by umpires Rudi Koertzen and Daryl Harper and third umpire Simon Taufel.
The reprimand was issued following a hearing directly after the close of play.
“It’s important that players and team officials at all times conduct themselves within the spirit of the game,” West Indian Lloyd said in the statement.
Australia won Sunday’s match by a shattering 208 runs to whitewash India 2-0 in the tri-series finals.
Later in the match Indian captain Sourav Ganguly complained to Australian skipper Ricky Ponting that he had been jeered by one of the Australian players as he came out to bat.
COME ON - What a whoop ass peformance by the Australians - utterly brilliant - deja vu all over again and it brought back the World Cup memories.
i agree with Ganguly's sentiments - the series should be short - i did lost interest in the tournament with so many damn games - anyhow had India won it he wouldn't have said it.
well done Aussie boys - Shane Warne is about to return - Glenn McGrath is getting better - perfect time to blow out Sri Lankans - COME ON!
I wonder if the Indian govt. is going to ban their cricket team from playing Australia…
:flower1: “Fans feast on Warne’s return” :flower1:](BBC SPORT | Cricket | Fans feast on Warne's return)
*A run-down ground in Melbourne suburbia was the unglamorous setting for the return of Shane Warne, a player so at home in the limelight he earned the nickname “Hollywood”.
After serving a 12-month drugs ban, Australia’s most loved and controversial cricketer was back - and hundreds of fans turned up to the see the former lover of meat pies and cigarettes.
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:flower1: “Warne’s return in photos” :flower1:](BBC SPORT | Cricket | Photo Galleries | Warne back in action)
He was included in the Victoria second XI to face Queensland at the old Junction Oval in Melbourne’s St Kilda district.
Rain prevented him from bowling, but the 34 year-old leg-spinner certainly looked trim and fit with fresh highlights in his hair.
So how did he feel?
“Fine, thank you,” he chirped before the day’s play.
In recent months he’s followed a strict regime of boxing, cycling, swimming and yoga. Yoga?
“It’s a bit un-Warney like,” Daniel Schramm, one of the supporters, told BBC Sport.
“But if it gets him fit then good on him.”
Australian fans have been waiting a long time for Warne’s return
Warren Bryant said: "We didn’t even recognise him when he came out to bat.
“He’s all tanned and he’s lost quite a few kilos. All that work has done wonders for him.”
Warne does not have long to impress those who really matter - the selectors. The first Test in Sri Lanka starts in Galle on 8 March.
Opinion among many former players largely favours the swift return of “Warney” to the international arena.
Former team-mate Mark Waugh told The Age newspaper in Melbourne the spinner, who has 491 Test wickets, must be recalled.
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Australian fans have been waiting a long time for Warne’s return
“I believe Warne will bounce back to his best,” he said. “Courtney Walsh’s record number of Test wickets (519) won’t be safe for much longer.”
Others disagree, claiming Warne has no automatic right to a place at the expense of Stuart MacGill, the second-highest Test wicket-taker last year.
Australia’s attack has been seriously weakened by the loss of Warne and of Glenn McGrath through injury. The pace bowler’s troublesome ankle means he is unlikely to tour Sri Lanka.
Mark Waugh advocates a swift Test return for his former team-mate
The selectors may not want to travel without at least one of this dynamic pair and could gamble on an under-done Warne.
Scott Clement, an Englishman from Cumbria, believe Warne is a player the Test side cannot do without.
“He’s been such a key figure over the years. When he and McGrath don’t play, the Aussies struggle. If he can get back into the team, it’ll be good for world cricket.”
Warne’s career has been blighted by off-field scandals and last year’s doping controversy, yet still his appeal endures.
“I’m not so keen on him off the ground,” said Helen Semmering, who turned up with her son to watch the day’s play.
“But you can forgive him almost anything because he’s such a super player.”
There are those who think Warne has been the victim of over-zealous newspapers.
“I think he’s been hard done-by,” explained junior cricketer Nathan Burnett.
“I mean, we’re Aussie blokes as well and we love a drink and all the things he loves. What he does gets blown out of proportion by the media. He’s a normal bloke, just like us.”
One thing is for certain - cricket in Australia has not been the same without this champion bowler. *
:flower1: “Gavaskar accuses India” :flower1:](BBC SPORT | Cricket | Gavaskar accuses India)
*Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar has lambasted the team as being the biggest chokers in the game.
India were hammered in the VB Finals against Australia, losing the second game by a humiliating 208 runs.
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Ganguly is down and out
Gavaskar, writing in a newspaper column, said: “So ordinary and unedifying was the sight of the batsmen getting dismissed regularly that the tag of ‘chokers in crunch matches’ now belongs to them and not South Africa, who had monopolised it for a long time now.”
India’s top six batsmen managed just 74 runs during their seven-wicket defeat in the first final at Melbourne on Friday, and contributed only 51 in the second on Sunday.
“India’s top order had been softened in Perth and hadn’t recovered at all,” Gavaskar wrote in the Hindustan Times.
South Africa have a reputation for caving in particularly against Australia, the most famous occasion being the 1999 World Cup semi-final when they looked certain to win but failed in the final over.
India’s spineless batting against the hosts in the one-dayers took much sheen away from their performances in the preceding four-Test series, where they confounded critics with a creditable 1-1 draw. *