da brdice： Plays of the Day for West Indies v Australia, Super Eights, March 27, 2007
da betsul： Andrew Miller in Antigua27-Mar-2007
Ricky Ponting took a risky single not anticipating Ramnaresh Sarwan’s accuracy at hitting the stumps © Getty Images
Suspicious starter of the Day
By the time Matthew Hayden had faced 18 deliveries in his last matchagainst South Africa at St Kitts he had boshed his way to 32 not outwith three fours and two sixes. Today, on a virgin pitch at Antigua’sbrand-new stadium, it took him that many balls to dribble his firstrun, a cagey steer behind point. It was a deceptive beginning,however. By the time he’d gauged the pace and bounce of the pitch andclobbered the highest Australian score in World Cup history, few couldrecall its humble beginnings.Misjudgment of the Day Mark 1
Ricky Ponting was looking ominously set, as he pretty much alwaysdoes, when he poked one into the covers and set off for a tight,though not entirely suicidal, single. Waiting for him, however, wasnone other than Ramnaresh Sarwan, who picked up in an instant and pinged downthe stumps at the non-striker’s end. Ponting was gone for 35 from 36balls, and Australia’s momentum had been stunted at a crucialjuncture.Misjudgment of the Day Mark 2
But the next time Sarwan clearly felt that Antigua’s boundaries were quite bigenough. Standing ten yards in from the ropes at long-off, he wasnutmegged, David Seaman-style, by a rare miscued drive from Hayden on109. He leapt backwards but failed to get even a fingertip to the ball,and gestured that the ball had gone for six, perhaps to save face asmuch as anything else. In fact the shot had dipped late and bouncedsix inches inside the rope. Had he been right back to start with, whoknows what would have happened?Catch of the Day
Nothing much could stem Hayden’s march, and in the final ten overs,he demonstrated that short boundaries were only a partial excuse forall the six-hitting that went on at St Kitts. His slap over long-onoff Jerome Taylor was a beauty – a shot that managed to be both high and flatat the same time. And yet … positioned in the deep, 15 rows back inthe top tier of the grandstand, an Aussie fan (it always is …) leaptout of his seat and back-flipped his way to a remarkable one-handedpluck. He didn’t even let go of the beer in his other hand (as it always is…).Let-off of the Day
By the time the drizzle eased with just under two hours of play stillpossible, the word doing the rounds in the stadium was that we wereall set for a 20-over slog fest. Duckworth and Lewis had decided on atarget of 163, a figure which may have been justified by the old ruleof thumb that you take your score after 30 overs and double it, but inthis era of Twenty20 cricket it was generous in the extreme. In theend, the rain rolled in to leave Australia quite content with theirday’s work.
