A tale of two jaw-dropping stats

Nine-and-a-bit tournaments, 308 matches across 22 countries, 101 venues, 19 competing nations, five winners. Such were the bare bones of the World Cup as of 7am GMT today. The two most extraordinary numbers lie elsewhere, though you won't have to burrow too far.

Let's start with the breath-wrenching stat. In Nagpur on Friday, Australia will seek to extend international sport's most formidable unbeaten record beyond 30 World Cup matches. That monument to indomitability may have been compiled in the most needlessly bloated of tournaments, an ostensible celebration of competitive artistry dedicated to dollars rather than excellence, but the thwack of jaw on floor still induces shivers and tremors.

Distance can burnish memories rather than diminish them. Burning brightest is that demolition of Pakistan at Lord's in 1999, as consummate a performance as any sporting team can ever have delivered in a cup final. The drubbing handed out to India in the 2003 final wasn't terribly far behind, the crown jewel Ricky Ponting's sumptuous hundred, during which his strokeplay outdazzled even Viv Richards' murderous showmanship in the 1979 final. In 2007, marvelled Tony Cozier in Wisden, they "set standards of power and perfection beyond even West Indies in their supremacy of the tournament's formative years", the apogee the semi-final against South Africa, who'd stolen Australia's throne at the head of the ODI rankings and were slaughtered for such effrontery.

Though favourites in 1999, there was no early warning of invincibility. Shane Warne had become a father overnight when Australia met New Zealand in the intimate riverside environs of Cardiff's Sophia Gardens, but Chris Cairns had no intention of getting all gooey: slugging 148 in 28 overs with Roger Twose, he put the outcome beyond question with a majestic six into the River Taff. You could smell the anti-Aussieness in the rickety stands that murky Thursday afternoon. It was if the bonds forged by rugby and underdoghood had persuaded every last local to back the Black Caps. The lusty roar that greeted victory might have been louder had the rugger buggers just thrashed the detested English at nearby Cardiff Arms Park, but in terms of watts-per-man, not that much.

In a riveting scrap at Headingley three days later, Pakistan squeaked home by 10 runs, the decisive blow landed by a lean young Shoaib Akhtar, sprinting in to castle Steve Waugh in faltering light with a turbo-charged inswinger that Bradman himself would have been hard-pressed to resist. Seas of lime-clad spectators, hitherto wary of expressing their identity, found their voice that Sunday: never has a Yorkshire crowd been so thirsty for an Asian victory.

The upshot was that Australia entered every subsequent game in that tournament knowing defeat was not an option: cue six wins and one winning tie, the exception that unscriptable semi-final against South Africa, still the most fluctuating, captivating and enduring of ODIs. Since that bright June evening they've chalked up 24 consecutive wins; no team in any of the major global tourneys has built a fortress even half as impregnable. Not the Japanese who won the first two World Baseball Classics in 2006 and 2009. Not the Brazilian footballers who swept through consecutive FIFA tournaments unbeaten in 1958 and 1962. Not even the Australians who went one better with a 14-game run from 1995, when rugby league's appreciably less competitive showpiece was expanded to 10 nations.

Since that Edgbaston epic, only in Port Elizabeth in 2003 has that record looked remotely vulnerable. When Brett Lee joined Michael Bevan, Australia, chasing England's 204 for 8, were 114 for 7. When Craig White ran out Lee, the target was still 73 runs and a couple of mountains distant. Enter Andy "Travis" Bichel, taxi-driver supreme, flush and fresh from a waspish 7 for 20. Swatting, chipping and flicking with alarming serenity, he and Bevan whittled the needful down to 14 off two overs, whereupon Nasser Hussain turned philanthropist, overlooking his most dangerous bowler, Andy Caddick, and plumping for James Anderson, whose previous over had been decent but who'd been generous hitherto. Bichel pulled the Burnley boy's second ball for six then clattered the next for four: game, set, match and small miracle.

Smarting from England's 14th successive 50-over loss to the auldest enemy, Hussain's post-mortem tone betrayed his helplessness, even despair: "We had it right there to win - whatever we tried we couldn't get that wicket." Was it a mental thing with these Aussies? No, "just a skills thing". Ponting disagreed. "I do believe in a psychological edge," he asserted. "I don't know if that hinders the performance of your skills, and England performed their skills better for most of the day, but I've no doubt they'd have had a lot of doubts in their minds."

Those doubts were expertly sown. Australia have racked up four of the competition's seven biggest victories (in terms of runs), meted out the heaviest thrashing to a full ICC member (a cool 215 runs v New Zealand in 2007) and consigned India and Pakistan to their most resounding batterings. Six times opponents have been whipped with half an innings to spare. But what proportion was matter, and what share mind?

In the unholy trinity of McGrath, Warne and Waugh, Australia boasted three of the most fervent, fearsome and iron-willed competitors to grace any game. Will an XI ever again feature even two of their like? In the interests of fair competition, let's bloody well hope not

No one can doubt that Australia have held most of the trump cards during their rampant reign. Of the 71 batsmen who made 200-plus runs in those two-and-three-quarter tourneys, Andrew Symonds (103.00), Waugh (97.66) and Michael Clarke (87.20) led the averages; Adam Gilchrist (158), Ponting and Matthew Hayden (129) the boundary biffers; Gilchrist and Ponting (nine) the 50-plus collectors. Among the 433 who turned over an arm, Glenn McGrath snagged the most wickets (62) and maidens (31). Of the 75 who claimed eight or more wickets, the stingiest were Jason Gillespie (3.26 runs per over), Bichel (3.45), New Zealand's Shane Bond (3.50), Warne (3.56) and Nathan Bracken (3.60).

Then there was the continuity: headed by Ponting and McGrath (28), no fewer than eight men contributed to at least 16 of the first 29 victories. Luck had something to do with it - drug tests proved more of a hindrance than injuries - but then so did fitness, focus, skill and drive. Above all, in the unholy trinity of McGrath, Warne and Waugh, Australia boasted three of the most fervent, fearsome and iron-willed competitors to grace any game. Will an XI ever again feature even two of their like? In the interests of fair competition, let's bloody well hope not.

AND SO TO the second of our startling stats, which is marginally the likelier to remain intact: not one of the nine finals has produced a home victory. Zero. Nada. Zilch. History may record it as the most improbable duck of all. Contrast that with soccer (six out of 19) and rugby union (two out of six). Indeed, only England, in 1979, have even qualified for a final.

The roots of this local unheroism are not hard to discern. English conditions were scarcely strange terrain for the West Indies XIs that won the first two World Cups - only Desmond Haynes hadn't attended a county finishing school. Australia entered the last three events as the best in the business. Between times, admittedly, there have been some bookie-bashing turn-ups - India outsmarting England in the 1983 semi-final, then stunning Richards and his cocky muckers in the final; England and Australia defeating India and Pakistan respectively to reach the 1987 denouement; Sri Lanka mugging India in the 1996 semi. The theme, nevertheless, has been one of unremitting anti-climax.

Can we attribute all this to that trusty cod-psychological standby, pressure of expectation? To an extent. In India and Pakistan, yes: nowhere are followers so populous, the clamour for success more intense. And comprehending the difference between "to win" and "to tie" on a Duckworth-Lewis chart utterly confounded South Africa's brains trust, betraying frayed nerves and cowed hearts. In Australia, that proudest of cricketing nations? Tactical inflexibility, a reluctance to move with the times and a touch of arrogance were far more culpable. Neither England nor West Indies fared any worse than predicted.

Is all this not worthy of at least two cheers? True, home advantage, so long an antidote to superior technique in Tests, can be negated by the brevity of the 50-over format. Besides, thanks in equal measure to the invention of the Future Tours Programme and the video, overseas pitches are no longer so foreign and crowds no longer so intimidating. Nor, courtesy of physios and medics and diets, is climate the factor it was. Three-sweater days in Wellington and Worcester; sweltering nights in Colombo and Chandigarh - they're all becoming much of a muchness. The same cannot yet be said of the pitches, but we're certainly heading that way.

This time could be different. India have the power and finesse. Sachin Tendulkar, in his final quest for a winner's medal, will be motivated as never before. Familiarity really ought to breed contentment. But how, for all the promise of that merciless batting overture in Dhaka, will the planet's best-supported team cope with the most suffocating, even terrifying, expectation of all?

Those who believe this town ain't big enough for three formats - and one suspects that a goodly few players and administrators are among them - know how big a tonic an Indian triumph could be for the future of the 50-over frolic. For a rallying cry they should adapt the 1907 hymn popularised by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the Coen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou? - "May The Duck Be Unbroken".