That annual ritual of playing twelve games to eliminate one team from a three-team competition is over for another year. Graeme "The Mouth" Smith takes the South Africans home after Sri Lanka took the bonus points that mattered. Australia hasn't lost a BH/CUB/VB finals series since 1993. Fingers crossed for the Moody one.
Game XXVII/XI was a tale of failure for Australia. They failed by 56 runs to reach 400. Adam "I thought about getting a double hundred" Gilchrist fell just 112 short of his goal. And with 344 runs to defend, Australia couldn't even extract a bonus point from the game!
And if you want evidence that Cricket Australia values the AB Medal Night more than the VB Series, look no further than the scheduling of the final round-robin game. The day after the medal presentation, between the two visiting teams, at the smallest of the six capital city arenas. Pity that it just happened to decide the identity of the second finalist. A small Hobart crowd for a 10am start on Tuesday, presumably just as the last stragglers at the Crown Casino in Melbourne were getting to bed. What a way to butcher the climax of a round-robin competition, Cricket Australia.
I'll leave it to Elmo to preview today's first final in Adelaide. Go Sri Lanka! (Or at least, take the series to three games.)
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