Beyond the boundaries

When India meet Australia in the final of the 2003 World Cup on Sunday, it will be a contest between the two most aggressive batting line-ups in the competition.

While the bowlers have prospered in this tournament, the batsmen, especially those in the mould of Adam Gilchrist and Sachin Tendulkar, have enjoyed creditable success.

The title-clash will, in some ways, represent the acme of aggression.

Both the teams have batsmen who believe in dominating the bowlers right from the outset. Little wonder more than 40 per cent of the runs scored by both the teams have come in boundaries.

While the Australian batsmen have hit 210 boundaries and 33 sixes in all their 10 matches preceding the finals, India is not far behind with 200 boundaries and 30 sixes.

The most number of boundary hits from the Australian blades came against Pakistan, when they hit 33 boundaries and 2 sixes in their score of 310-8, after being 86-4.

Coincidentally, the Indian batsmen too feasted on the Pakistani bowling: they hit a total of 29 boundaries and 3 sixes when they successfully chased 274 runs at Centurion. Tendulkar & Co also massacred the Namibian attack to score 311 runs with 29 boundaries and 4 sixes.

The tables below gives you a detail of runs scored by both teams in boundaries:

INDIA

AUSTRALIA

Although in pure statistics Australia has been the best team in this World Cup, with India coming a distant second, India has won more man of the match awards than the dominant Aussies: the boys in blue walking with eight gold watches to seven from the men down under.

The Indian batsmen have dominated the awards (Tendulkar 3, Ganguly 2). The other three awards have been shared by the 3 fast bowlers underlining their role in India's turnaround. The only two matches in which the Indians did not walk away with the MoM awards was against The Netherlands and Australia.

Australia's seven MoM awards have, in contrast, been equally distributed, with Andrew Symonds winning it twice. Brett Lee, though, has yet to figure in the list. The other baffling aspect is that the Aussies have missed out on the awards on 3 occasions, against Zimbabwe, Kenya and New Zealand. Even a Brett Lee hat-trick against Kenya, was not sufficient to earn him the man of the match award.

Awards Won by Aussies