by bigfluffylemon » Sat Nov 25, 2023 6:24 am
Emerging star of the tournament, as well as biggest positive surprise, was Rachin Ravindra (since they have similar themes I'll cover both here, otherwise I'll just repeat myself later). A virtual unknown coming into the tournament with just 12 ODIs to his name and some fairly unremarkable figures (an average of 23.6 and one 50 in those 12 ODIs), Ravindra exploded onto the scene to finish the fourth-highest runscorer, dominating powerful bowling attacks like Pakistan and Australia, and completely blindsiding England in the first game. One to watch to be sure.
Batting performance of the tournament, no surprises as it's probably the batting performance of all time, Glenn Maxwell's 201 not out v Afghanistan was the unanimous pick. It's hard to find enough superlatives to describe this innings - from 91-7 Australia were dead and buried, but Maxwell scored the only double century in a chase, the only double century not scored by an opener, Australia's highest ever world cup score and smashed a heap of other records along the way, while almost unable to walk with cramp for a large part of the innings. Once this world cup is otherwise long forgotten, this innings will be talked about with the same reverence as Tendulkar's 200, Richards 187 and Lara's test 400. Unsurprisingly it also took the champagne moment of the tournament, and Afghanistan v Australia was match of the tournament too as a result - not just for the innings itself, but the context in which it was played, a truly extraordinary result in a game of cricket Australia had no right to win.
Last edited by
bigfluffylemon on Sat Nov 25, 2023 6:39 am, edited 2 times in total.