Taking on the four horsemen of West Indies
Chasing 287 in the 1979 World Cup final against West Indies' all-star pace attack, England barely made an attempt. Which line-up from any era could have made a fist of it?
ESPNcricinfo staff
21-Jun-2020
Adrian Murrell/Getty Images
In this series, Hot Seat, we present our writers with a tricky cricketing scenario and ask them to captain their way out of it.
Scenario: It's the 1979 World Cup final. Viv Richards has scored 138, West Indies have reached 286, and now Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner wait. Mike Brearley's England decide to pack up and leave rather than going out to bat. You are charged with finding a batting line-up from any team and any era that is willing to actually go for this chase. Whom do you pick?
Danyal Rasool: Sri Lanka, 1996
That West Indies side was well ahead of its time. You would need a similar unit to chase the total down. So I'd plump for the team most famous for pushing the boundaries of limited-overs batting: Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup line-up. It would not be easy for Sanath Jayasuriya to play reasonably risk-free cricket while pursuing an asking rate of nearly five against that West Indies bowling attack, but the challenge of revolutionising opening batting in 1996 was not easy either. Romesh Kaluwitharana had an abysmal 1996 World Cup, but the resolute Arjuna Ranatunga and the unflappable Aravinda de Silva were both at their peak. Plus they had Roshan Mahanama and Hashan Tillakaratne to chip in down the order. Most important: they know how to get the job done in a World Cup final.
That West Indies side was well ahead of its time. You would need a similar unit to chase the total down. So I'd plump for the team most famous for pushing the boundaries of limited-overs batting: Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup line-up. It would not be easy for Sanath Jayasuriya to play reasonably risk-free cricket while pursuing an asking rate of nearly five against that West Indies bowling attack, but the challenge of revolutionising opening batting in 1996 was not easy either. Romesh Kaluwitharana had an abysmal 1996 World Cup, but the resolute Arjuna Ranatunga and the unflappable Aravinda de Silva were both at their peak. Plus they had Roshan Mahanama and Hashan Tillakaratne to chip in down the order. Most important: they know how to get the job done in a World Cup final.
Andrew Miller: Australia, 2003
There's no point in bringing an alpaca to a GOAT-fight. To take down West Indies in their absolute pomp, you need an all-time great team in their absolute pomp. England's class of 2019 would be too susceptible to a Test-match-style pace barrage; India's 2011 world-beaters were already past their prime; Sri Lanka's funksters of 1996 might give it an almighty go, but if Jayasuriya fell early, the strategy would crumble. There's only one team with the dynasty to match (let alone exceed) the feats of Clive Lloyd's mean machine. It's over to Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting et al. That top three alone went unbeaten in consecutive campaigns - Ponting himself didn't lose a single World Cup match in 32 outings between May 1999 and March 2011. And it was in 2003, the mid-point of their hat-trick of titles, that Australia were at their absolute peak, with Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn, and the ultimate finisher, Michael Bevan, lurking in the middle order to take up the challenge.
There's no point in bringing an alpaca to a GOAT-fight. To take down West Indies in their absolute pomp, you need an all-time great team in their absolute pomp. England's class of 2019 would be too susceptible to a Test-match-style pace barrage; India's 2011 world-beaters were already past their prime; Sri Lanka's funksters of 1996 might give it an almighty go, but if Jayasuriya fell early, the strategy would crumble. There's only one team with the dynasty to match (let alone exceed) the feats of Clive Lloyd's mean machine. It's over to Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting et al. That top three alone went unbeaten in consecutive campaigns - Ponting himself didn't lose a single World Cup match in 32 outings between May 1999 and March 2011. And it was in 2003, the mid-point of their hat-trick of titles, that Australia were at their absolute peak, with Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn, and the ultimate finisher, Michael Bevan, lurking in the middle order to take up the challenge.
Andrew Fidel Fernando: India, 2011
The 2003 and 2007 Australia line-ups would be the obvious choices, but in terms of quality top seven, India from 2011 can't be far behind. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar glittered at the top of the order, with Tendulkar in particular capable of seeing out fast, hostile bowling, even if Sehwag could occasionally be susceptible on bouncier tracks. Then you had Yuvraj Singh in his pomp in the lower middle order, MS Dhoni marshalling the lower half with his zen-like cool, Gautam Gambhir, who top-scored for India in the 2011 final, a young Virat Kohli, and Suresh Raina.
The 2003 and 2007 Australia line-ups would be the obvious choices, but in terms of quality top seven, India from 2011 can't be far behind. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar glittered at the top of the order, with Tendulkar in particular capable of seeing out fast, hostile bowling, even if Sehwag could occasionally be susceptible on bouncier tracks. Then you had Yuvraj Singh in his pomp in the lower middle order, MS Dhoni marshalling the lower half with his zen-like cool, Gautam Gambhir, who top-scored for India in the 2011 final, a young Virat Kohli, and Suresh Raina.
This is also the only side to have successfully chased a score of more than 250 in a World Cup final. So comfortable was India's win that day, Kumar Sangakkara later said that not even a score of more than 300 might have been enough to change the outcome.
Karthik Krishnaswamy: Zimbabwe, 2015
You'll need the top-drawer heavy hitters of ODI cricket to even have a chance of chasing this total down. Or you could turn to a talented batting group that, during the 2015 World Cup, put up totals of 277, 286 for 6, 289, 215, 326 and 287, and could have gone quite far in the tournament had they had any sort of bowling support. So step forward Solomon Mire, Hamilton Masakadza, Brendan Taylor, Sean Williams, Craig Ervine, Sikandar Raza and Elton Chigumbura, and go for broke.
You'll need the top-drawer heavy hitters of ODI cricket to even have a chance of chasing this total down. Or you could turn to a talented batting group that, during the 2015 World Cup, put up totals of 277, 286 for 6, 289, 215, 326 and 287, and could have gone quite far in the tournament had they had any sort of bowling support. So step forward Solomon Mire, Hamilton Masakadza, Brendan Taylor, Sean Williams, Craig Ervine, Sikandar Raza and Elton Chigumbura, and go for broke.