Australia v Scotland

The Crouching Tiger and the Minnows
The second match in the 2007 Cricket World Cup was held on Wednesday, 14 March. It did not draw much attention from the crowd as the non-test playing Scotland was facing the world number 2 and the defending champions Australia. The Australian captain Ricky Ponting made no bones about the fact that they were facing minnows of the world cricket. But the main interest in the Australian camp lied in getting a good match practice after they toiled hard against New Zealand before the World Cup.

Craig Wright got lucky with the coin
The Scottish captain Craig Wright won the toss and invited Australia to bat. The pitches in the West Indies so far have proven to be very slow. Thus shot making seemed difficult during the practice matches.

Dazzling start
The bowlers from Scotland showed some discipline during the initial overs by maintaining the line and length of the bowl. They contained the Australian batsmen Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist for the first three overs when they did not score any boundaries. Gilly however after the start did away with their cautious cruise and came on to his own by firing against the Scottish bowlers. Later on Matt Hayden joined the party to give the start that was anticipated by the crowd. Adam Gilchrist ended his innings by scoring 46 runs of 55 balls followed by Matt Hayden making 60 runs from 73 balls.

Ponting stole the show
The Australian captain Ricky Ponting had come of the age and made his intention clear to garner the maximum runs out of this world cup by a dashing century. He made full use of the life through a dropped catch when he was on 23 runs. He went on to reach few of the milestones while making a mockery of the Scottish bowling attack. Ricky Ponting got passed the world cup record of Saurav Ganguly of hitting the maximum number of sixes.(With this, Ricky Ponting has hit 24 sixes in the world cup ODI matches.) He hit 9 fours and 5 sixes on his way to 113 runs from 93 balls till he was bowled by the Scottish captain Craig Wright.

The middle order complimented the effort put on by the top order batsmen. A quick 29 runs from Bradd Hodge out of 28 balls and blasting knock of 40 runs of 15 balls by GB Hogg consolidated Australia's position in the match . All the Australian batsmen made full use of the condition to get the maximum batting practice they could get. Their score 334 runs at the loss of 6 wickets was a seemingly impossible target for the team of Scotland.

Fighting a lost cause
Scotland lost the match in the first innings itself when they let the Australians impound such a mammoth total of 334 runs. The rest of the match was lost through their inexperience at the international level of cricket. The Scottish batting line up fell apart like a pack of cards. They were not enough resourceful to encounter one of the strongest bowling attacks in the world. CJO Smith the Scottish wicketkeeper put up a valiant effort to push off the inevitable. He came in at the score of 42 for 5 wkts in 15.3 overs and got out at the score of 131 for 9 wkts in 40.1 overs, and as JAR Blain was injured and didn't bat; his was the last wicket to fall. He played an innings of 51 runs that made Scotland last for 40.1 overs in their innings. Scotland finished off scoring 131 runs thus loosing the match by a margin of 203 runs.

Old warhorse on a mission
Glenn McGrath the spearhead of the Australian pace battery did not let the absence of the speedster Brett Lee affect the prospects of the match. He displayed his zeal to make his final World Cup tournament memorable. It was McGrath who once again broke the backbone of the opposition with his impeccable line and length. His statistics of 6 overs,1 maiden over, 14 runs and 3 wickets is a proof of the amount of cricket left in him.

One of the biggest wins
Australia scripted the second biggest win in the history of the World Cup Cricket. The victory margin of 203 runs is the second best after the one registered by Sri Lanka. The victory however have not taken anyone by surprise but boosted the confidence of the Australian cricketers before they proceed to the next round.

Man of The Match
There was not much difficulty in making the choice for the man of the match, as the name of Ricky Ponting was so obvious after his breathtaking knock of 113. Ricky Ponting again proved that he is not only the most successful captain in current scenario but one of the most dangerous batsmen as well.