In many South African cricket followers’ eyes, Loots Bosman, Roger Telemachus and Robin Peterson were the recipients of an all-expenses-paid jaunt to West Indies next month when they were named in South Africa’s 15-man squad for the World Cup on Thursday.Callers to radio stations and respondents to polls on internet websites have called into question their ability and some have suggested they are there just to fill a quota of seven players of colour in the squad.It must sometimes bring a tear to the eye for the players concerned and it was heartening that coach Mickey Arthur and selection convenor Haroon Lorgat backed the trio and gave clear, sensible reasons for their inclusion when they spoke to the media on Thursday night.All three have shown scratchy form of late, with Peterson and Bosman only appearing in the opening game of the series against Pakistan and Telemachus not playing at all.But Arthur was adamant the selectors have given him “the best possible bowling combination” and stressed Peterson and Telemachus had important roles in terms of the variation they bring to the attack.”If the pitch turns, then we are very confident Robin Peterson will do the job for us. He’s our man as far as a spinner is concerned and he is a wholesale cricketer who gives us three disciplines in one,” Arthur said.”If the pitch is slow, then Roger can bring us variation. He bowls wicket-to-wicket in the middle overs, can reverse the ball and is very good at the death.”Lorgat added that Telemachus’s particular role was to follow the new-ball bowlers, a job he is more suited to than the omitted Johan van der Wath.Lorgat also explained Bosman’s inclusion and Boeta Dippenaar’s exclusion by saying South Africa would like quick starts in the World Cup.”That decision was made around the game plan. We want to get off to a quick start in the powerplays, exactly the way Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers have responded at the top. Boeta is unlucky, but he had five innings at the Champions Trophy to cement his place,” Lorgat said.Arthur also defined the roles of those bowlers who will follow the brilliant new-ball pairing of Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini.”Andre Nel’s job is to strike behind Makhaya and Shaun, while Andrew Hall and Charl Langeveldt provide variation, reverse-swing and bowl at the death. Jacques Kallis is our fifth bowler and can swing it, Graeme Smith has been working hard on his off-spin and Justin Kemp has been working really hard on his cutters.”South Africa’s squad certainly has a settled look about it with Smith himself, Mark Boucher, Gibbs, Hall, Kallis, Langeveldt, Ntini, Peterson and Pollock all having appeared in previous World Cups. Boucher and Gibbs will be playing in their third World Cups, while Kallis and Pollock were members of the 1996, 1999 and 2003 South African teams.South Africa have had a harsh time of it in recent World Cups (actually in all of them, bar 1996), but Smith believes his team ought to make an impression in the West Indies.”This team has come a long way since 2003, it is much calmer and more confident. Everyone fits in really well, it is a happy team. Now we just need to adapt to conditions and deal with the pressures in the Caribbean,” he said.Cricket South Africa president Ray Mali certainly backed his skipper.”This squad has set the world alight for the last two seasons by playing positive, brave cricket. I am confident they will mount a formidable challenge at the World Cup,” Mali said.Now it just remains to be seen whether the composition of that squad will be greeted with similar positivity in the Republic.

Tom Moody, Sri Lanka’s coach, has singled out Upul Tharanga, Chamara Silva and Lasith Malinga as key members of Sri Lanka’s World Cup campaign. According to Moody, the trio has come through with some incredible performances over the last 12 to 18 months that have given Sri Lanka the right balance in the batting and bowling departments.”Tharanga’s introduction to international cricket has been quite stunning,” said Moody before embarking on his first World Cup as coach. “A young 21-year-old coming into the set-up from nowhere and doing what he’s done in both forms of the game is absolutely impressive. He is one who is quite likely to have a very successful World Cup.”Tharanga, a left-handed opener, broke into international cricket 19 months ago and has made rapid strides, as his six centuries in 43 ODIs indicates. Five of those came in 2006, a year in which he was one of four Sri Lankan batsmen to reach 1000 calendar runs.Moody felt the development of Silva, a right-handed middle-order batsman, was simply ‘stunning’. “He came from a pair in his first Test to back that up with a magnificent Test hundred, a big hundred. It was the same when he got his opportunity in the one-day arena. It hasn’t taken him too many goals to get there.”I’ll never forget the day when he was involved in a Twenty20 practice match about four months ago at the SSC. I’ve never seen this guy bat before and I asked, ‘Who is this batting?’ I just couldn’t believe that he wasn’t involved in any form for Sri Lanka A or the national teams. He took his chances in the A team, scored runs and the rest is history. He’s got stunning talent and he’s got some exciting years ahead of him.”Moody admitted that the biggest concern he had a month ago was the middle order, but that the performances of Silva has dispelled all doubts.On Malinga, he of the slinging action and searing toe-crushers, Moody said: “Lasith Malinga’s development has been incredible and impressive. He also could have a huge impact in this World Cup”. Malinga, 23, took 30 ODI wickets from 18 matches last year, and Moody felt his ability to generate extra pace, get early breakthroughs and then return towards the latter part of the innings to stifle the run-rate brought a new dimension to the Sri Lankan bowling line-up and given captain Mahela Jayawardene more options.There were also words of confidence for the more experienced players in the side, including Sanath Jayasuriya – “There’s no reason why he cannot have a World Cup like he had in 1996. He’s focused, his technique is better than it’s ever been, he’s fit and he’s hungry” – Kumar Sangakkara – “Sanga’s consistency in both forms of the game and his focus and concentration is something that we all should admire” – and Mahela Jayawardene, struggling for runs but still a vital member of the side.”Sanga, Mahela, Silva, all could have a big World Cup and make a difference,” Moody added. “It won’t be one player that will help Sri Lanka have a successful World Cup campaign. All these players will have to play an important role in that success.

Tom Moody’s family will influence whether he stays with Sri Lanka, heads home to Australia or returns to England to work after the World Cup. Moody has a list of potential positions to consider at the end of the tournament, including continuing his role with Mahela Jayawardene’s team or coaching his former state Western Australia.He has also been linked with the England job but that appointment depends on whether Duncan Fletcher remains in the post. “There has been speculation about this, that and the other, but at the end of the day, I haven’t looked at anything,” he said in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Yes, WA has contacted me and asked of my interest. I said to them that at the end of the World Cup, I will sit down with Sri Lanka and see what the future holds there, like I will with whatever opportunities may be there.”An ECB spokesman told The Australian Moody had not been approached to replace Fletcher, who has the job for “as long as he wishes”. However, Fletcher’s position has come under increasing pressure since England lost the Ashes and his role is expected to be reviewed once the World Cup ends.Before the tournament Moody withdrew from the field to replace Australia’s John Buchanan, a position taken by Tim Nielsen, because the timing was not right. “It was a huge privilege to be seen as a potential applicant, but I made the decision for my own personal reasons and that hasn’t changed,” he said. “In five years’ time, or ten years’ time, it may be completely different.”I may look at it and think: ‘This is the time now.’ If the demand is there and the opportunity is there, it might be perfect for me, but at the moment, that job, as attractive as it is, wasn’t quite right for where I am.”Moody, who played eight Tests for Australia and won two World Cups, has two young children and his wife Helen lives in England. “Location is not a huge issue but [family] will be the No. 1 priority in the decision, and where I want to be in the next three to four years,” he said. “Not from the point of view of geographically, but where I want to be with regards to the family and the time I want to spend with them.” A position with a state, county or Australia’s Centre of Excellence would offer him more stability than a globe-trotting role with an international team.

Andrew Symonds is not guaranteed to play in the game against South Africa on Saturday, which he has targeted since tearing his right biceps in February. Despite a strong recovery that is ahead of schedule, there are doubts he will be ready for the final Group A game at St Kitts.Symonds said he was getting stronger every day but was only hopeful of appearing. “The shoulder’s all right,” he told AAP. “The workload has gone up over the last five or six days and it seems to be handling it all right. I’m not a million miles off getting out there, hopefully, pulling the colours on and having a crack.”Alex Kountouris, the physiotherapist, said Symonds had not been confirmed to play and the major doubt was over his throwing, which is limited to about 30 metres. If Symonds is picked Brad Hodge is likely to be the unlucky batsman after posting 123 against The Netherlands on Sunday.”I really have to go day by day and see what’s required of me from the selectors’ point of view and what the physio wants,” Symonds said. “It depends what they want me to be able to do at 100%, or whether 90% [is acceptable]. So I don’t know exactly what will happen.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Australia put the seal on the most dominant campaign in World Cup history, securing their fourth title and their third in a row since 1999 thanks to Adam Gilchrist’s scintillating 149 from 104 balls. But that, sadly, is not what the final of the ICC World Cup West Indies 2007 (to give it its full and fully deserved title) will be remembered for. In a display of cack-handedness that heaped new levels of farce upon a farcical seven weeks, the final overs of a broken contest were played out in near-darkness, penetrated only by the glow of the pavilion lights and the bewildered blinking of 20,000 flash bulbs.Whatever went on in those overs is anyone’s guess. It was too dark for the fielders to see anything, let alone any of the fans in the stadium or the press in the gantry, and besides, the Australians had already celebrated their moment of victory. That came after the sixth ball of the 33rd over, when the Sri Lankans – to all intents and purposes – accepted an offer for bad light, and appeared to have conceded the game with an improbable requirement of 63 from 18 balls.What happened next will doubtless be the subject of blame-games, buck-passing and recriminations. Australia’s celebratory huddle was broken up by a tap on the shoulder from the umpire Aleem Dar; the groundstaff who had been unpegging the onfield logos were told to nail them back down and reposition the pitch markers, and out trooped the players to block their way into the twilight. It was asinine, undignified, and entirely appropriate for a tournament that long since detached itself from the origins of sporting contests.But let’s concentrate on the onfield action, because – surprising as it may seem amid such a torrent of embarrassment – there was some pretty good cricket on display until officialdom stepped in to wreck everyone’s memories. For all the romantic notions that Sri Lanka brought to their second final appearance in four tournaments – the mysteries of their bowling attack and the impishness of their batsmen – Australia’s ruthlessness was absolute, as they extended their unbeaten run in World Cup matches to 29 since May 1999.And it was Gilchrist who stormed to the fore, demonstrating an eye for the big occasion that is the preserve of few. This was his third scene-stealer in consecutive World Cup finals. Against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1999, he cracked 54 from 36 balls; four years later against India at Johannesburg, he made 57 from 48. But nothing quite compared to this. Once the sun had come out and Gilchrist had gauged the pace and bounce of a rock-hard and true surface, there was no reining him – or Australia – in.Gilchrist’s innings was the highest ever made in a World Cup final, beating the mark of 140 set by his captain, Ricky Ponting, four years ago, and it was launched in a stand of 172 for the first wicket with Matthew Hayden, who made 38 from 55 balls before picking out Mahela Jayawardene in the covers.Hayden’s innings took his tournament tally to an incredible 659 runs at 73.22 – second only to Sachin Tendulkar’s 671 in the 2003 World Cup – but today he was as anonymous as at any time in the past seven weeks. It did not matter a jot, for his performance as a quick-sprinting second fiddle was second-to-none. By the time of Hayden’s dismissal, Gilchrist was already sitting pretty on 119, having faced almost five more overs than his partner.Adam Gilchrist might have had a quiet tournament until the final, but when it really mattered he smoked 149 of the best runs•Getty Images

Though Jayawardene had prevaricated at the toss, admitting he had been in two minds as to what he’d have done if he had won, Australia were in no doubt whatsoever. Five times in this tournament they had batted first and posted scores in excess of 300, and that would have been six in a row in a full-length contest. Gilchrist set the tone by clubbing Chaminda Vaas for four and six in the second over, while Lasith Malinga – the deadliest weapon in the Sri Lankan armoury – opted for accuracy over explosiveness.Malinga went for just six runs in his first spell of four overs, but he was clocking an average of 84 mph, a good 10mph slower than in his devastating semi-final performance. It meant that the early breakthrough Sri Lanka so needed never materialised, especially when Dilhara Fernando – who began tidily enough from round the wicket – dropped a sharp return chance down by his shins when Gilchrist had made a run-a-ball 31.The moment was lost and with it went Sri Lanka’s best hope of controlling the tempo of the match that had been reduced to 38 overs by early rain. Fernando was a broken man after that – his next three deliveries were clubbed for four, four and six, the last of which very nearly took out the fire engine next to the 3Ws stand at long-on. It can only have been there to douse the ardour of Australia’s batsmen, because Gilchrist was absolutely smoking. He brought up his 15th ODI hundred from just 72 balls with a drilled four over long-off, and thereafter heaved through the line with impunity, trusting his eye, the surface and the fact that the fight had gone out of his opponents.Sri Lanka’s batsmen did their best in the face of a spiralling run-rate, swinging the blade with gusto even as the cameras in the crowd betrayed the fading of both the light and their hopes. While Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya were adding 116 for the second wicket, the contest was alive, but Sangakkara miscued Brad Hogg to Ponting at midwicket, before Jayasuriya, in the final appearance of a competition he has graced since 1992, was bowled by a flatter, faster delivery from the part-time spin of Michael Clarke.Glenn McGrath, another man making his final bow, then seized another segment of the limelight by striking with his penultimate delivery in international cricket. It was not his greatest ball by any means – a legside full-toss that Russel Arnold (another retiree) popped off his hip to a diving Gilchrist. But it took his tournament tally to 26 wickets – a record – and his overall World Cup tally to 71 – another record.Australia were the deserved winners of this contest, and in truth Sri Lanka were worthy runners-up – they plugged away with composure in the face of overwhelming odds, and the margin of Australia’s victory was their slimmest in both the tournament and in their three latest World Cup wins. But the manner in which the victory was signed and sealed will continue to grate long after the teams have flown home. Such is the nature of the modern-day game of cricket.

The world has changed just a little bit since Michael Vaughan last took charge of England’s Test team. The Ashes he fought so hard to recover have been relinquished, humiliatingly. The band of brothers with whom he surged to an English-record six series wins in a row have been routed and scattered. The knees on which he used to play some of the most sumptuous cover-drives in the game have been weakened and stiffened by hours of surgery. It’s just as well he’s making his comeback on his home ground at Headingley. (Or Headingley Carnegie, as it wasn’t known when he played he last played a Test there in 2004.)”It does feel like a fresh start and like being at the beginning again,” said Vaughan, whose long-awaited comeback had to be postponed by yet another Test (his 16th on the sidelines) when he broke his right middle finger during his solitary first-class match of the season, for Yorkshire against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl. After an indifferent World Cup, in which he found form just as the team was preparing to fly home after the Super Eights, he is returning to the side on reputation rather than merit.”Are you going to start calling me Jose?” he joked, in reference to Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho, the self-styled “Special One”. But it is a serious point. On the day that the Schofield Report, English cricket’s inquest into the failings of the winter, was unveiled, Vaughan’s uncontested return to the helm of the team felt more like a throwback to English selections of the 1950s. The Australians are the best in the world precisely because they have no truck with such issues of sentiment.Who knows what England would have done had Andrew Flintoff not failed his fitness test ahead of this game. To accommodate both the captain and the team’s talisman, the selectors would have had to dispense with either Ian Bell or Paul Collingwood – who have been two of the most reliable batsmen of the post-2005 era. “I know I need some runs and I am pretty confident I can get a few,” said Vaughan. “You are always under pressure playing international cricket. That is what I live for and why I want to play this week.””I am England captain, I have made myself available for selection and I’ve been selected,” he added. “Surely that is a positive thing? I want to play cricket. Yes, in a wonderful world I would have liked to have had a four-day game behind me, but that is not the case. What I do have is a lot of fond memories and a lot to draw back on. If I can re-live my net form in the middle, I am sure I can get a few runs this week.”He could hardly wish to face a more amenable attack than the current West Indian line-up, however. For all the confidence that Ramnaresh Sarwan and his colleagues took from the Lord’s draw, the fact remains that five of England’s top seven thumped centuries in the course of that match, although in mitigation, the bowlers had come into the game without so much as an over of first-class practice, thanks to England’s fickle spring weather.”A couple of our bowlers looked very shy,” said Sarwan – a notion that would make a few greats of the Caribbean turn in their graves. “But one positive we can take from the last game is that we bowled quite a few short balls in the second innings. In the first innings, we were very hesitant about it.”

West Indies enter the match, however, in high spirits after the defiance of their Lord’s performance. Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga ensured theirs was the last laugh to echo around an empty ground on that soggy final day, when they added 89 unbeaten runs for the first wicket. “One of the things we will try to do is stay on top of their main bowlers,” Sarwan said, in anticipation of a nervy opening gambit from Steve Harmison in particular. “We saw when Australia played them [in the Ashes] they were very positive against Harmison and kind of threw him off. We have a similar sort of approach.England will at least have an extra bowler to call upon for this game, after Matthew Hoggard’s injury effectively reduced them to a three-prong strike force. James Anderson would be the favourite for a recall, after featuring in the fifth Test at Sydney as well as the World Cup, although there must surely be a temptation to give the one-cap wonder, Ryan Sidebottom, a chance to atone for his wicketless debut against Pakistan in 2001, on a ground that he knows intimately from his seven-year spell with Yorkshire.”We’ve given them all the opportunities to bowl in the nets and it will be a tough decision to make,” Vaughan said. “They both look to be bowling pretty well. The left-armer is a different option, someone we haven’t seen for a while, who provides different angles. He has always got his wickets at a decent average, his economy is very good, he bowls in good areas and swings the ball nicely, so you could say he has been unlucky to only get one cap.”The key member of the seam attack, however, will be Harmison – one of only four surviving colleagues from Vaughan’s last victory as England’s Test captain, at Trent Bridge in 2005. Marcus Trescothick, Ashley Giles, Simon Jones and his namesake Geraint cannot expect to play international cricket ever again; Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard could miss the rest of this series. Maybe there does exist some telepathic connection between captain and strike bowler that will once again unleash the beast. But England shouldn’t bank on it. They did exactly that when Flintoff was named as Harmison’s captain last winter.”We have just been trying to get our minds into the right frame going into tomorrow’s game,” said Vaughan. “Sometimes you can try too hard and I felt he did that at Lord’s and just got away from himself. He has to relax and bowl, we all know he can do it, I am just looking forward to seeing him at his best here.” Maybe, with all eyes focused on the man at mid-off, rather than the man in the delivery stride, he can do just that.England (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss, 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Ian Bell, 7 Matt Prior (wk), 8 Liam Plunkett, 9 Ryan Sidebottom, 10 Steve Harmison, 11 Monty Panesar.West Indies (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Daren Ganga, 3 Devon Smith, 4 Ramnaresh Sarwan (capt), 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Runako Morton, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Denesh Ramdin (wk), 9 Daren Powell, 10 Jerome Taylor, 11 Corey Collymore.

Ravi Bopara, the England allrounder, is in doubt for England’s one-day series against West Indies after injuring his thigh during Essex’s drawn match against Middlesex at Lord’s on Sunday.Bopara, 22, was one of few highlights for England during their disastrous World Cup in the Caribbean, hitting 52 in his fifth one-dayer to take England to the brink of a brilliant win over Sri Lanka in the Super Eights. He remains very much part of England’s plans to rebuild their one-day squad, but his absence will further complicate the selectors’ plans following the absence of Andrew Flintoff.Bopara has been in excellent form so far this season, too, recently notching 229 against Northamptonshire – his career-best.England’s one-day squad is due to be announced on Friday.

Richard Pybus has left Middlesex less than six months after being appointed as their first-team coach.In a short statement, Middlesex said that he had “asked to be released from his contract with immediate effect [and] the club has agreed to this request”.Pybus signed a three-year deal in February and joined the county in April after finishing coaching the Titans in South Africa. He had two stints as Pakistan national coach between 1999 and 2003. “We expected Richard to stay with us for two or three years,” Ed Smith, Middlesex’s captain, told The Times. “We all enjoyed working with him and he had the players’ respect. He was an intelligent man and had interesting ideas.”Vinny Codrington, the county’s chief executive, told The Times that the resignation came as a complete surprise. “There were a number of issues in his resignation letter that were personal and not related to the club or the players. His wife had been here for just a month and I suspect he was surprised by the high cost of living here.”Pybus’s decision came on the same day that the side he left to join Middlesex, Titans in South Africa, revealed that they had failed to find a suitable replacement for him. “Maybe the fact that the Titans job is available influenced him, but I don’t know,” Codrington said. “He was the boss there. We specifically wanted a first-team coach as we have a director of cricket. He expected his own office here at Lord’s, but we simply didn’t have room.”John Emburey, who Pybus replaced, will resume a role he stepped down from last year after a dire season saw the county finish bottom of both Championship and one-day leagues.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

On a cold and overcast day at Southampton, England turned in a heart-warming performance with both bat and ball to thrash India by 104 runs – their third-biggest margin of victory against them – in the first of seven one-day internationals. Alastair Cook and Ian Bell set up the comprehensive victory with outstanding maiden centuries and a 178-run second-wicket stand to push England to 288 for 2, while James Anderson shut off all escape routes for the Indians with a decisive new-ball spell of 3 for 19 in eight magnificent overs – he eventually finished with career-best figures of 4 for 23.India had started the ODI series as favourites, but the only thing that went right for them today was the toss – Rahul Dravid won it and chose to field, deciding that the overcast conditions would help his fast bowlers, and that the ball would come nicely on to the bat later in the evening.Neither hunch turned out to be correct: there was little swing or seam on offer in the afternoon, while the extra zip later in the evening proved too much for India’s batsmen to handle as Anderson nailed both Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh in one over to effectively seal the contest.England’s decision to play both Cook and Bell – and drop Owais Shah – was a bit of a surprise, but it turned out to be an inspired move. India did reasonably well in the early part of the innings, allowing England just 40 in the first ten overs and 88 in the first 20, but that was when Cook and Bell decided to turn it on, putting together the second-highest partnership for England in all ODIs against India.

Before this game Cook had only played five ODIs, while Bell was more experienced only in relative terms, but both batsmen paced their innings as if they were veterans in this form of the game. On a big ground and a slow outfield, they placed the ball in the gaps, ran hard to take all the twos and threes on offer, and thoroughly exposed the woefully sluggish Indian effort in the field.Cook’s was the more deliberate innings, but his calm and unflappable approach at the start was just what England needed after Matt Prior’s dismissal in the 11th over. He never strayed far from the orthodox approach, worked hard for his runs – there were only eight fours in his knock – and paced his innings quite superbly: his first 50 took 74 deliveries, but his next 52 came at a run a ball, and included a couple of meaty blows to the midwicket boundary off the fast bowlers late in the innings.Bell, on the other hand, was all silken touch right from the get-go: his third scoring stroke was an on-the-rise drive through the covers off RP Singh, and that set the tone for the rest of his innings. Against the fast bowlers, he cut, drove and flicked with exquisite timing, while Piyush Chawla was dismantled with twinkle-toed footwork, one straight six over the bowler’s head being the stand-out shot.Both batsmen took full toll of the fifth bowler’s quota – Tendulkar, Yuvraj and Sourav Ganguly leaked 79 in 13 overs – and built the momentum perfectly. Kevin Pietersen chipped in with a cameo effort at the end as England finished just 12 short of 300.A daunting target of 289 needed a solid start from Tendulkar and Ganguly, but they lasted just 15 deliveries before Ganguly threw it away with a sloppy piece of cricket that typified India’s performance today: Tendulkar drove Stuart Broad for a single to mid-off, but Ganguly set off for a second run that was never on, and failed to beat a flighted but accurate throw from Monty Panesar.

With the breakthrough gifted away by India, Anderson charged in and shut out any chance of an Indian fightback with three quick strikes. Bowling at around 140 kph, he varied his length cleverly and asked questions of all the Indian batsmen. Gautam Gambhir flashed a drive and nicked to the keeper, while Tendulkar and Yuvraj fell within five deliveries of each other.Tendulkar might have fallen even earlier, but escaped being bowled when the ball brushed the stumps off his pads but failed to dislodge the bails. His luck ran out, though, when he flicked a half-volley on leg stump straight to short midwicket. Four balls later, when Yuvraj poked outside off and edged to gully, India had slumped to 34 for 4.From there, it was only a matter of damage control for India. Dravid hung around to score 46 without ever suggesting that the knock would do anything other than delay the inevitable. With Mahendra Singh Dhoni, he added 68 for the fifth wicket before Dhoni fell to an inspired Andrew Flintoff. Playing his first international match in exactly four months, he charged in, bowled consistently at around 145 kph, beat the bat, induced edges, and finally got Dhoni to glove a pull to the wicketkeeper for a painstaking 60-ball 19. Dinesh Karthik added a spunky unbeaten 44, but was also involved in two shambolic run-outs as England completed an utter rout.

Revenge is sweet
Exactly two weeks ago, Yuvraj Singh had to endure the humiliation ofhaving five sixes smashed off his bowling at The Oval against England.With India unlikely to play England for a while, Yuvraj decided to paythem back, with interest, in their last clash of the season. Stuart Broad happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as Yuvrajwaded into him, launching the ball into orbit not once, not twice, notthrice, but six times. Meanwhile, Dimitri Mascarenhas, who had been theperpetrator of that assault on Yuvraj at The Oval, was quietly thankinghis stars that he hadn’t been called upon to confront Yuvraj in this mood.Welcome to the real world Dimitri
India had only managed 41 from six overs, but the introduction of Mascarenhas was the call to action. Virender Sehwag, whose tally was 15from 22 balls at that stage, turned it on, clipping a four to leg and thenslicing one over point for six. The run-fest had begun.Butterfingers
India had already cantered to 77 after nine overs, but England had anopportunity to stem the rot right there, when Sehwag swung hard butmiscued the shot. The ball spiralled in the air behind the wicketkeeper,and Mascarenhas – that man again – ran in from fine leg, got under theball, and then messed it up completely, not even getting his fingers tothe ball.A slip in the deep
Vikram Solanki top-edged a cut off Joginder Sharma, the ball loopedtowards RP Singh at third man for what should have been a regulationcatch, but there was a twist to this story. Singh slipped, fell, andfrantically flapped his hands at the ball even as it bounced just to hisleft and made its way to the boundary. Four runs to England, minus marksand a rap on the knuckles to Singh for his dodgy shoes.