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Heros and Villains...18
McGrath Shines
On the 18th day of the Cricket World Cup 2007, in a match truncated to 22 overs each, Australia prevailed over Bangladesh with a 10 wicket victory. During the match, Glenn McGrath crossed a mile stone to become one of the top wicket takers of the World Cup. He has now taken 57 wickets from 33 matches. He has surpassed the earlier Wasim Akram's record of 55 wickets. McGrath took 3 wickets in his spell of 5 overs for 16 runs to restrict Bangladesh at 105 for 9. Gilchrist and Hayden scored the runs without beign parted. Mc Grath was declared the ICC player of the match.
For Indians, it is necessary to reflect that the best world cup bowling performance has been from Anil Kumble who has taken 31 wickets from 18 matches. This represents a rate of 1.72 per match same as that of McGrath. Unfortunately, Ganguly in 2003 and Dravid in 2007 did not play Kumble in most of the matches. Otherwise he could have played at least another 10 world cup matches and would have been near the top of the World Ccup bowlers.
Under the NCR rating, it was however Adam Gilchrist who became the hero of the match for his 59 in 44 balls.
In the NCR ratings, Mashrafe Mortaza of Bangladesh joined the top 10 with a breezy 25 in 21 balls. The top 10 under NCR ratings were as follows.
Rank Points Name Country 1 388 Mathew Hayden Australia 2 337 Scott Styris New Zealand 3 281 Brad Hogg Australia 4 275 Gream Smith South Africa 5 247 Geln McGrath Australia 6 238 Dwayne Bravo West Indies 7 225 Jacques Kallis South Africa 8 210 Nathan Bracken Australia 9 207 Jacob Oram New Zealand 207 Ricky Ponting Australia 10 205 Mashrafe Morthaza Bangladesh In the above table, Australia has completed one match more than others and it is possible that Scott Styris my regain the lead in the next match.
Naavi
April 7, 2007
Interested persons who want to write articles may volunteer by e-mail to naavi@vsnl.com
