Captain's who scored a century in cricket World cup finals

It's an amazing feat to win the biggest prize of your field, it also becomes more special if you win while you're leading the team and also you're giving your absolute best performance when it matters the most.

A century in cricket world cup finals by a captain is such a rare feat that it happened only twice in international cricket so far.

Clive Lloyd's fighting century and all round performance

The year was 1975, the first ever men's cricket world cup was started, in the final match of the  tournament West Indies met Australia.

Australia won the toss and the then Aussie skipper Ian Chappell asked West Indies to bat first, the idea was simple they want to make full use of ideal bowling conditions.

The idea seemed to be working at one stage when Aussie bowlers made good use of the conditions and at one stage Windies were tottering at 50/3, at that point of time West Indies skipper the bespectacled Clive Lloyd walked out to bat.

Alongwith another Windies legend Rohan Kanhai (55) started the process of rebuilding,  , both Lloyd and Kanhai forged an important partnership of 149 runs, with Kanhai playing the role of an anchor and Lloyd taking on the Australian bowlers (surviving a dropped chance on 26) they made sure that no further dents will be done till the time they reach a substantial score.

With both Lloyd (102) and Kanhai being dismissed in the space of 7 runs Australia realised they still have opportunity to finish Windies early.

However, Keith Boyce (34), Bernard Julien (26) and Deryck Murray (14) made sure that West Indies ends up with a healthy total of 291/8 in their stipulated 60 overs.

Australia despite having a decent start failed to chase the total down, Lloyd came back to haunt them by pick up a wicket and helping in a run out to complete an all-round performance and for the same he received the player of the match award as well.

West Indies won the first ever cricket world cup and continued their dominance in world cricket in the next two world cup tournaments as well.

In the first part of the blog we've seen or feel the heartbreak of Australia but in the second part we will again feel the aura and relive the juggernaut of the invincible Australian cricket team which has steamrolled every cricket team which came in their path.

Punter's brilliant innings shuts the door for Indian cricket team to make a comeback.

 

In the year 2003, All-winning and defending world champions Australia were facing India, both teams have completely a different journey throughout the tournament as the clear favorites Aussies despite facing troubles in some of their earlier matches always found a way or someone playing exceptional cricket to get them over and they remain undefeated on their way to the finals.

On the other hand Indian team came after losing both the test and one day series in New Zealand, Indian team started their World Cup th a win against Netherlands, however many thought that in this first match Indian team performed quite poorly against an associate nation which wasn't expected, in the second match faced a dominant Australian team, Men In Blue lost the second match by 9 wickets.

But after this match, Indian team started their turnaround and to everyone's surprise they win all of their matches and make their way to the finals of the tournament, despite surprising every cricket expert and also their fans most people speculated that Australia will win the tournament hands down but also this Indian team has started to believe in themselves and were considered as a team which is a threat to Australia's title defence.

In the finals of the tournament both Australia

and India met again after their group encounter earlier, while Indian cricket team was eager to forget what happened in that match and was looking forward to script an unlikely win and create history, Australia wants to continue what they're doing best- to dominate. 

At Wanderers, Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly won the toss and maybe, just may be thinking about their poor batting performance at the first match against Aussies, asked Ricky's men to bat first.

Aussie openers Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden started attacking Indian bowlers from the very start, Australian openers made a century stand in just 13 overs, Gilchrist struck a magnificent half century (57) and Hayden (37) supported him well, both were dismissed by Harbhajan Singh (the only bowler who took wickets for Indian team in that match).

Australian captain Ricky Ponting (140) played a brilliant knock and never let the momentum down and with his partner in crime Damien Martyn (88) made it sure that the Indian bowlers can make no further dents into their plans, they played so well that by the end of the stipulated 50 overs Australia ended up at 359/2 and both Ponting and Martyn were leaving the ground with a broad smile in their faces because they've made it sure that they're not losing now.

With Sachin Tendulkar's wicket at the very first over Australia absolutely stamped their authority over India, despite a brilliant 82 by Virendra Sehwag and a fighting 47 from Rahul Dravid, it was never looked like that India can chase down this huge total, and eventually they crashed down to an embarrassing 125 runs defeat.

Australia continued their dominance in cricket world, they won the next cricket World cup (2007) and remain unbeaten in the whole tournament, their unbeaten run in Cricket World Cup was ultimately ended when Pakistan defeated Australia in a group encounter in 2011 cricket world cup, they were knocked out by India in the quarterfinals of the same tournament.