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New Zealand wins ICC Cup

Nairobi, Oct 15: New Zealand have won the ICC Cup, beating India by four wickets with two balls to spare. The architect of their victory was centurion Chris Cairns, who hit the winning runs off Ajit Agarkar in the last over.

Cairns made 102 off 113 balls, coming into this match with a knee injury and full of medicines. Earlier he had bowled an excellent spell of 10 overs for 40 runs, making him the obvious candidate for the man of the match award.

Cairns and Harris put on 122 runs in an exemplary display of patience and determination. After five wickets had fallen for 132, they played with utmost caution to take the score to 254 before Harris was out for 46. That too came from a converted catch by Robin Singh off Venkatesh Prasad.

Talking of Venkatesh Prasad, he was the most economical of the Indian bowlers today at 7-0-27-3. And Sourav Ganguly did not bowl him for his full quota!

If he took a "gamble" with trying on Zaheer Khan again after it clear that the youngster was not up to the situation today, why did he give him one more over? Why did he not bring on Prasad then or for that matter Robin Singh or himself?

There was an opportunity to run Cairns out in the 41st over, but that was missed with Ganguly making a poor throw and Yuvraj Singh, the bowler, not being in position.

It was Sourav too who was responsible for India ending up with 30 runs less than what they should have got. Not only did he run out Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, he failed to accelerate in the slog overs when he was very much present and settled.

Surely no better opportunity could have come India's way for a major title victory. They had played so well to beat World champions Australia and ICC Cup holders South Africa.

All credit to New Zealand for their thoroughly professional triumph.