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After years of disgrace in the cricketing world and the recent fatal destruction caused by the "Hurricane Ivan", the people of the Caribbeans have a lot to cheer about. Their cricket team has made them proud once again but after a very long period of time. After the 1979 World Cup the ICC Champions Trophy 2004 was the next most important event won by the West Windies.
Who could have thought at the beginning of the tournament that it would be Brian Lara's men who would lift the trophy despite the presence of units like Australia, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and England. Not to forget the Kiwis who had defeated the Windies in The NatWest tri-nation final earlier this year.
If it would have been a World Cup tournament then things might have been somewhat different. For the Windies, the Aussies stopped the Kiwis from moving into the next stage, the English prevented the Sri Lankans from moving ahead and the Pakistanis kept India out of the tournament. And as far as the South Africans were concerned the Windies handled them quite superbly.
A brilliant display of batting by the English Captain and Trescothick applied the brakes to the flow of the World Champions viz Australia. And a crucial but wrong decision taken by the Pakistani skipper allowed the modest West Indian bowling to click and then their vice-captain, Sarwan, handled the rest along with his captain, Brian Lara, to guide the West Indies to victory.
Finally, England and West Indies met at The Oval for the "Final Battle". Both the teams had, before the final, met seven times for one-dsay Internationals this year. The Windies had the edge when the results of the above stated matches were known.This was the eighth/time when these two teams went to meet each other but this time it was a mega event i.e. a Mini World Cup.
Brian Lara won the early battle by winning the toss and electing to field first. Soon everything was moving in their favour. And it was a great moment when Lara took an unbelievable catch of Flintoff. They were jubilant and ecstatic. The English bating kept on flopping until the anchormen, Trescothick and Giles did the consolidation and finally England posted a respectable total on the board. The Whole English team was booked due to some intelligent captaincy by Brian Lara.
He was always active on the field and took some fine catches and then did an intelligent piece of fielding when he was involved in a run out to get rid of Marcus Trescothick, who was going to be a dangerous man in the last three to four overs.
The Windies have a reputation of being good chasers. But this time it was the final. Harmison and Flintoff were not as easy to get away with. Harmison's pace and short-pitched deliveries put the Windies into trouble. They lost their first five wickets for 80 runs on the board. But fortunately for them, Chanderpaul batted well but the wickets on the opposite end kept on falling. And finally it was all over.
When the Windies lost their eighth/wicket of Chanderpaul, Dean Jones, who was doing commentary, declared that England can't lose the match from there. Every West Indian fan might have lost all the hopes but Bradshaw and Browne never gave up. They played for the glory of their islands and at the end surprised the whole world. Truly speaking, their performance was an extra-ordinary one and after looking at the last thirteen overs of the match one can without doubt say that the West Indies deserved to win the trophy. The spirit to fight back and resist, which was not there for so long, in the West Indies cricket squad was back. And now I think that one can hope to see much improvement in both forms of the game by the West Indies.
I would end suggesting the Pakistani cricket team to learn the same spirit from the West Indian young cricketers and try to lift their game than mourn on the fact that if they may have done well in the semi-finals, this trophy may have been theirs.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2004

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