Cricket365 - Team of Tournament
 

6 Lankans and 3 Aussies make up the team of the cup.

"To no-one's great surprise, Australia took out the tournament for the third time in a row. What is perhaps more surprising is the presence of only three Aussies in our team of the tournament"

Article at: http://www.cricket365.com/story/0,18...096655,00.html

"Whilst Six Sri Lankans make the cut, but they had no other players in serious consideration, while the odd vote cast differently could easily have seen eight or nine Aussies involved.

Perhaps the lack of an Australian on the panel had an effect. Perhaps the rest of us are just bitter."

Hahaha.

Vass is on there with 13 wickets and Tait isnt with 23....
Thats mildly amusing:ph34r:
And surely Kallis was better than Jaysuriya this tournament

:laugh:

Was the editor or selector Sri Lankan?

Seems likely. At least he shows a strong bias.

Here is my 16 with some stats to explain WHY.

The Batsmen (8) :

Openers : Hayden, Jayasuriya......and the keeper batsman - Gilchrist
Middle Order : Ponting, Jayawardhane, Kallis, Pietersen, Clarke, Styris

Wicket Keeper (1) :
9.

Gilchrist

The Frontline Bowlers (7) :

Pacers : McGrath, Tait, Malinga, Bracken, Bond
Spinners : Murali, Hogg

Others who can bowl :

Regularly : Jayasuriya, Kallis, Styris

....and, sometimes : Pietersen, Clarke.

Its tough nominating a captain between the popular choice of Ponting and the "critic's choice" of Jayawardane :) I choose Ponting, not least because the team consiss so many of his countrymen particularly so many of the frontline bowlers.

The stats of these players are given below. It is imposible to argue with these stats. I have some concern for Tait's profligacy (corrected from original 'Tit's profligacy') with the ball and would probably not have him in a final eleven if Bond was available.

Kallis would be dropped if I was asked to reduce the numbers from 16 to 15.

So the squad reads

1. Ponting (captain)
2. Gilchrist (keeper)
3. Hayden
4. Jayasuriya
5. Jayawardane
6. Pietersen
7. Kallis
8. Clarke
9. Styris
10. McGrath
11. Tait
12. Malinga
13. Bond
14. Bracken
15. Murali
16. Hogg.

The highlighted would be my first preference for 12 to play.

The more profligate they are, the better, imo.:laugh:

Ha ha. Freudian slip I suppose. :)

No Gilchrist & no Bond are faintly farcical calls IMHO.

Tait or Bracken would surely have been better bets than Vaas too.

Gilchrist was pretty average up until the final, wasn't a lot of consistency. Bond was excellent though, his Economy Rate was under 3 for almost the entire tournament.

I can see their point in why they chose Sangakkara over Gilchrist.
Sangakkara had an amazing World Cup with regard to his keeping.

Batting wise despite his struggle in some games, he made at least 5 scores of over 50 , and 2 of these against NZ and Australia. Gilchrist's World Cup was pretty poor until the 149 in the Final. Now while any one could argue that was the single most important innings of the World cup, if you think in terms of points awarded by performance at each game (ie some of the blinders Sangakkara took wicket keeping + his scores in 5 games IIRC and considering Sangakkara faced the Australian bowling attack in scoring the runs he did as opposed to Gillys innings against SL) you can see why they picked Sangakkara.


Not saying they are right (but that's how they came about picking Sangakkara I suspect).
{Being A biased Sri Lankan and considering the additional cricketing paraphernalia Gilly Used:laugh: I have to agree with them .:) }

I agree whole heartedly. He was simply superb. If he can keep like this consistently, he will be one of the greatest keeper batsmen the game has ever seen. Ames is the only other I can think of who was good enough to play as a pure batsman and was still a simply fantastic wicket keeper. He will always be a first choice with me for a world test side.

Having said that Gilchrist had to be in the side if it was chosen after the finals. It would stick out like a sore thumb if that wasnt the case. He won the match single handedly.

Many people I have talked to have mentioned how Sri Lankan bowling got slaughtered and was ordinary. Actually it was nothing like that. Except for Gilchrist, everyone else had to really work hard against the Sri Lankan bowlers that day. No one else mastered them except Gilchrist. The difference was stark

Agree with you here.

Even Gilly had a lot of mi****s and snicks (must put together a clip of this). The Lankans bowled OK, and on another day, Murali may have got a four'fer (he had 3 snicks go begging in 4 balls at one stage) when bowling to Ponting and Gilly. Gilly rode his luck well and was the diff. in the end - Good on him.

Yeah Gilchrist was very, very lucky especially with the ball landing in between feilders and the like. IIRC so where some of the SL batsman when they started with the big shots, but that's the nature of power hitting I guess.