A 37th Test hundred for Tendulkar but at what price? © Getty Images

Sachin Tendulkar's recent failures to dominate average attacks are often exaggerated by the weight of his reputation: a slow, passive century from Tendulkar would still be a solid knock by someone else, it is said. There must be truth to it but the manner in which he crawled to a century today has left even that argument open to doubt. Today's was a solid, honest Test century - for a debutant, not for someone playing his 137th Test.

Coming in at 281 for 0, Tendulkar never looked like he was batting in a side pushing for a declaration on a flat wicket where their bowlers would need the maximum time to get 20 wickets. He ended up with an unbeaten 122 off 226 balls, his strike-rate faster than only Sourav Ganguly among Indian batsmen.

What does one expect of a No. 4 walking in at 281 for 0, when the team know they will have to bowl on a flat wicket in extremely tough conditions? Tendulkar has, not unfairly, been put in the same bracket as Ricky Ponting and Brian Lara over his career but surely neither would have scored at a strike-rate of 53.98 in a similar situation? A strike-rate that only increased after what appeared to be a clear message to hurry up, during the tea interval? As the table below shows, Tendulkar faced nearly half the total deliveries bowled while he was out in the middle but scored only 40% of the runs, which is hardly what you'd expect from the leading batsman in the team.

The contrast is stark when his contributions are compared to those of his partners: both Dravid and Karthik scored far more runs than Tendulkar, though Tendulkar faced more than half the deliveries during each stand. His approach when batting with Karthik was particularly perplexing; Tendulkar was already on 49 when Karthik came in, yet he scored at a niggardly 2.87 runs per over in that second-wicket stand, even as Karthik scored nearly two runs more per over.

Ganguly's arrival should have forced Tendulkar to take charge. Instead, he seemed more intent on ensuring that a 37th Test hundred didn't elude him - Tendulkar was on 83 when Ganguly came, and the get-your-century-at-any-cost attitude meant he used up 42 deliveries to go from 80 to 100. In fact, his second 50 runs took four balls more - 102 - than his first. (Karthik, on the other hand, scored his last 107 runs in 128 balls, while Dravid's second fifty took 68.) Only after getting to the hundred did Tendulkar step it up, getting his last 22 off 26 balls.

That Tendulkar was not really comfortable was evident yesterday too. He had ended the first day with nine from 31 balls: surely he wasn't playing for stumps for the last 13 overs of the day?

There is more to it than the numbers, though - and that's the worrying part. A show of intent was missed probably as much as the ability to take control of the game and demoralise the bowlers. It has become a cliché to say how painful it is to see Tendulkar scratch around for runs against bowlers who are good but not exceptional but, on today's evidence, it still stands true.

Mashrafe Mortaza kept coming at him with manful short-pitched stuff, because he saw Tendulkar was not comfortable handling it. Even yesterday, he had played at and narrowly escaped tickling the first delivery with the new ball. At times, he ducked too early; on occasions, he took his eye off the ball while swaying away. During the opening spell of the day, he kept Mortaza especially interested. Hook shots weren't even contemplated, it seemed. He scored 19 off 52 Mortaza deliveries. It could have been any other batsman.

Mohammad Rafique was not given any opportunity to disbelieve that Tendulkar has history against left-arm spinners. Twice, after Tendulkar had passed fifty, Rafique did him with classical stuff, not the stifling kind. At 52, he edged one past the non-existent slip for four. The next one Tendulkar, well set, did not have a clue about. He was 72 when one pitched on the middle stump and took his outside edge. Rafique was not even required to adopt the defensive approach of bowling over the wicket.

Tendulkar couldn't improvise and play a scoring shot when deceived by the slowness of the wicket. Not long ago, you'd describe him as a batsman who had two shots for every ball; here he was struggling to do anything more than nudge it to leg. Thirty-seven of his runs - including 19 singles and five twos - came behind square on the leg side. On the other hand, only 18 of his runs were scored in the covers, with just one four.
It just doesn't seem possible that the team plan required Tendulkar to play anchor, after having racked up such a large total without losing a wicket and especially as Rahul Dravid also asserted himself on the game. If it was, it was a flawed one. That they got quick wickets towards the end of the day's play should not change things; it remains that the wicket was not doing anything while Tendulkar batted.

The wicket was slow, the weather conditions were tough, no more. But Dravid, Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer all accelerated in the latter parts of their innings. For Tendulkar, the acceleration came only after the century. It was all the more painful to see him make the conditions and bowling look more difficult than they probably were.

Worryingly for India, Tendulkar has been batting in this perplexing, defensive mode more often recently, and has done so for successive Test hundreds on this tour: the numbers were similar for his century in the previous match, at Chittagong - 75 balls for his first 50, 92 for his next; 62 runs in the arc from fine leg to midwicket, including 38 singles. Just like the pace of his hundred didn't matter at Chittagong, it might not make a difference here if the weather stays clear and Bangladesh continue to crumble. Against England later this summer, though, the runs he scores - and the rate he gets them at - could matter a whole lot more.

If Australia and Zimbabwe play at a neutral venue, Australia's boycott would seem a hollow gesture © Getty Images

Brydon Coverdale

The Australian government's ban on Australia touring Zimbabwe has continued a worrying trend of inconsistency from governments and cricket administrators, who can't seem to reach a definitive conclusion on the country. While the decision not to tour for a three-match series in September was the right one - a popular one with senior players; one that has upset Dean Jones; and one that has reasonable public support - the matches may be held in a neutral venue after South Africa offered to step in as host.

Cricket Australia (CA) is keen to pursue that option, which raises the question of what exactly Australia objects to. Is it visiting Zimbabwe or playing Zimbabwe? If the teams compete elsewhere, the boycott would seem a hollow gesture.

Similarly, England boycotted their World Cup match in Zimbabwe in 2003 on safety grounds but toured the country a year later. In 2005, the New Zealand government let its cricketers play in Zimbabwe but stopped Zimbabwe touring New Zealand.

Perhaps sniffing a chance to gain credibility before a federal election - John Howard, the prime minister, must call the poll by the end of the year - the government backed up its hard words with action once it received a legal go-ahead. Howard would prefer Australia not to play Zimbabwe anywhere for the time being. Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) has the president Robert Mugabe as its patron and effectively acts as an arm of his brutal government regime, which Howard this week likened to the Gestapo.

However, CA is now exploring when, where and if a rescheduled series might take place. Playing Zimbabwe in South Africa - or in Australia, England or Siberia - should be no more acceptable than in Zimbabwe itself. Would a sporting boycott of South Africa have worked as well in the 1970s and 80s if the only stipulation was that matches be held outside South Africa? It's a different scenario, but action is needed on Zimbabwe as well.

Comparing Andy Flower and Arthur Morris highlights just how appalling the standard of living has become under Mugabe. Both were classy left-handers who captained their nations in Tests. Another common trait is they are a few years past the life expectancy in their home country. Morris, a native of Sydney, is 85. If he still lived in Zimbabwe, Flower, 39, would have eclipsed the average lifespan for males by three or four years. It is a sobering statistic.

The decision over a neutral series venue will probably remain as talk, because it's unlikely Mugabe will consent to give up Zimbabwe's hosting rights. After CA was ordered not to make the trip, ZC still refused to budge, telling the Sydney Morning Herald it expected Australia to tour as planned.

	John Howard's government would prefer Australia not to play Zimbabwe anywhere for the time being © Getty Images

On a less political note, even if the tour was to go ahead, what purpose would a series of three ODIs in a neutral country serve? Who would care? Australian fans could barely see the point of the three-match Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series in February, involving sides that would go to the World Cup semi-finals. That was a genuine contest between two of the best cricketing nations in the world.

Supporters are unlikely to stay up to watch what would surely be an embarrassing mismatch between the world's No. 1 team and a side ranked below Ireland at 11th. It's hard to believe the people of Zimbabwe would display much interest in the series - even if they knew it was on. They have other things on their minds, the nation's 80% unemployment rate for one; whether to stay put or attempt to flee, for another. Recent games in Zimbabwe have attracted hundreds of fans, not thousands.

Perhaps if Zimbabwe's best players were available - Heath Streak, Tatenda Taibu, Andy and Grant Flower - we could hope for a semi-competitive series. But of course they are not, as Zimbabwean cricket has become a microcosm of the nation's political situation. Like the country itself cricket in Zimbabwe is a shambles. Outsiders are having problems even finding scorecards for Zimbabwe's domestic competitions. Of course, the competitiveness or lack of it is nothing compared to the human rights violations in Zimbabwe.

Stopping a neutral series would set a clear precedent and may give other nations strength to follow a similar path. Opinion throughout the world will be divided, but consistency is needed on an issue that refuses to get a final answer.

The shambles at the end of the final typified what had gone on before © Getty Images

Tim de Lisle

For us fans, cricket is such a consuming passion that the end of a major series or tournament usually brings a feeling of emptiness. Not this time. The end of the World Cup has come as a relief. As an event, it committed the crime that sports administrators are apt to accuse players of: it brought the game into disrepute.

A World Cup is a showcase, and at different times over the past seven weeks, international cricket has been shown looking stupid, grasping, callous and boring. Finally, in the darkness of Bridgetown on Saturday night, it looked ridiculous. The man in charge of running the show, the man picked out to referee the most prestigious match, didn't know the rules.

Recently, the ICC top brass made a move to get match referees re-named. The new job title they had in mind was "chief executive". On Saturday, Jeff Crowe didn't have a clue what was going on, listened to the wrong person, failed to apply common sense, and made a big mess of a simple decision. Yes, "chief executive" will do nicely.

The business with the bad light was a new kind of blooper, and we shouldn't make too much of it. It should prove to be a one-off, and it may even turn out to have done the game a perverse favour. It made sure that there was no last-minute redemption, no danger of the mishaps being wiped from the folk memory by the brilliance of Adam Gilchrist's hitting. It's tough on Gilchrist, but perhaps better for the game that the last taste in the mouth was a sour one. Something may even be done about it.

The more worrying blunders in this World Cup were the ones that had been committed before. Which, when you think about it, was most of them.

Remember the failings of the 2003 World Cup? It went on far too long. It had a surfeit of minnows. It had two group stages, with points carried over from one to the other, which made the second of them more complicated and less dramatic than it need have been. It was blighted by petty regulations caused by kowtowing to sponsors. It suffered from a lack of atmosphere at many of the games. It didn't feel as special as it should have, as all the major teams had gathered for the Champions Trophy five months earlier. And it was overshadowed by politics, because the South African government decided to stage some games in Zimbabwe, which, then as now, was being run as a vicious tyranny.

Malcolm Speed laps up the carnival atmosphere © Getty Images

This time, there was nothing like Zimbabwe, if you ignored the fact that they were again allowed to compete. Politics didn't overshadow the tournament. That role fell to the death of Bob Woolmer, for which, as far as we know, nobody but an unknown murderer can be blamed. But the rest of that catalogue of failings recurred. The ICC failed to learn from history, so they were doomed to repeat it.

They deserve credit for being prepared to hold the World Cup in the West Indies, which was a bold choice. But that boldness was not carried through. They were prepared to let the tournament be held in the Caribbean, but not - until they came under fire from the media - to let it have a strong Caribbean flavour. They imposed their own mentality: that of the fusspot, the control freak, the dead hand of the western corporate world. It was tantamount to colonialism, in an age that should know better. And it was wrong for sport, which is a different beast from business.

Like most World Cups, this one has been a watershed. It has marked the end of an era for most of the leading international coaches, some of the captains, and at least two great players - Glenn McGrath and Brian Lara. You could argue that it is now bigger as a watershed than it is as an event.

The game is losing many good people, and not losing some less good ones. The hope that they will consider their positions is probably a forlorn one. But they absolutely must rethink their approach.

It was hardly Australia's fault they reached such heights that no team came within touching distance © AFP

Sambit Bal

It was entirely appropriate that a sorry tournament should have a sorry end, though it must be said that the embarrassment in the final moments far exceeded anything that preceded it. That the magnificent Australians were reduced to pleading for some positive coverage for themselves was a reflection of the pathetic depths this tournament had slumped to. But even they knew it was futile: even their towering, majestic and wholesome performance could not rise above the shambles.

In a sense they contributed, though in an entirely different and positive way, to the hollowness of this World Cup. But it was hardly their fault they reached such heights that no team came within touching distance. They dominated the tournament like no team has ever done in the history of cricket, and had it not been for the disgraceful finish, they would even have been entitled to two victory celebrations. They were almost twice as good as their opponents.

Sri Lanka, their closest competitors in the one-day arena, kept apace with them for about 20 overs in their first-round match, and for a few overs today, Kumar Sangakkara, and to a lesser extent, Sanath Jayasuriya were able to match them with their skills. But over the whole length of the tournament, they were overwhelmingly awesome. It could have been hardly imaginable that they could better their performance of 2003, when they didn't lose a game. But they have, and in doing so, they have set new limits for execution of cricket skills.

The organisers have done exactly the same. It was thought nothing could get worse than the World Cup in South Africa, which felt interminable, tiresome and stifling. The ICC has succeeded in dragging the level even lower. They have brought the World Cup to the most joyous and spontaneous part of the cricket world and squeezed every ounce of enjoyment out of it. Since they measure success in terms of cash, it has been bragged that the tournament has broken records in cash receipts, but in all other ways, it has been an abysmal failure.

Such has been the level of alienation among the passionate fans here that many locals have come to view the ICC's organisation of the tournament as occupation of their land. Cricket lover after cricket lover has lamented the pricing and the fact that "they have taken the party, the culture out of our stands".

It can be argued the tournament has been conducted in an efficient manner. The grounds have been spruced up, the players have been looked after well, and from a media point of view the facilities have been excellent. But they have failed to grasp the priorities. Perfection has been achieved in the most trivial things. Not a can of Coke has entered the stadiums, fans have been asked to turn their garments carrying offending logos inside out or face eviction, but they failed to feel the pulse of the cricket fan, a far more significant "stakeholder" in cricket than the sponsors.

Herschelle Gibbs' six sixes in an over were a highlight for South Africa, but they couldn't make it to the final © AFP

Percy Sonn and Malcolm Speed, the top-level ICC officials, were booed at the presentation ceremony. The contrast couldn't have been sharper because the same crowd gave a thumping ovation to Garry Sobers and Everton Weekes moments later. When hosts are booed at their own party, you know how much it has soured. Administrators who feel no kinship for sport will never find affection from its supporters. Entirely fittingly, it was Sonn who presented the trophy to the winner, for it was his prerogative as the president of the ICC. Sobers is merely the greatest cricketer that ever lived.

Of course, the players were not blameless. Many teams played soulless, spiritless cricket. And it didn't help that India and Pakistan, two of the tournament's biggest draws, combusted before the party began. Ironically, Bangladesh and Ireland, the teams that provided the most exciting days in the first round, also doomed the Super Eights to a series of meaningless matches.

But they could hardly be faulted when teams worthier than them featured in equal mismatches. England were an embarrassment before South Africa, who capitulated even more abysmally before Australia. West Indies lost horribly to South Africa and New Zealand even more horribly to Sri Lanka. Matches went from bad to worse at such pace that in the end no expectations remained. It was a tournament in which journalists spent more time focusing on the poor performances than celebrating stirring ones.

Good moments were scarce. There was Tamin Iqbal's sensational charge against India, Boyd Rankin's energetic bowling against Pakistan, Herschelle Gibbs' six sixes, Muttiah Muralitharan's magical spell against India, Lasith Malinga's sensational four-in-four, AB de Villier's turbo-charged hitting on one leg against West Indies, Mahela Jayawardene's sublime hundred against New Zealand in the semi-final, and ultimately, Adam Gilchrist's demolition of Sri Lanka in the final. Too few for a tournament lasting 46 days. One thing that might emerge from this is a shorter event, but it may be for the wrong reasons. Sponsors and television channels can't afford to lose India early. So expect the format to be tweaked to ensure India's presence at the business end.

In the end, it will be a tournament that will be remembered for the bad, ugly and terrible. A horrible death, under-performances, resignations, sackings, and retirements kept us busy. The legacy of this vast and meaningless World Cup will be despair and emptiness. It couldn't have ended sooner.

Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene speak to the umpires about the chaotic scenes at the end of the final © Getty Images

Andrew Miller

How many ICC officials does it take to change a lightbulb? At least a committee of five, none of whom will have read the instruction manual, but each of whom will have a louder and more forthright opinion than the other about how best to do it. If that reads like the start of a bad joke, then it is nothing compared to its ending. Somehow a team of four of the most experienced officials in the game, plus a former Test captain in Jeff Crowe, managed to grab hold of the most luminous event in the world cricket calendar, and fumble so hopelessly that they ended up fusing the entire building.

Time is a healer, and come daybreak (when lightbulbs are no longer needed), those who witnessed the conclusion to the 2007 World Cup final may be able to compartmentalise the incompetence and remember instead the stunning totality of both Adam Gilchrist's innings and Australia's surging campaign. But there are only so many embarrassments that a game and those who love it can forgive, and this latest cock-up could not have come at a worse time for the world sport.

The world of cricket is drowning in over-zealous officialdom. That has been a theme of this entire Caribbean experience, with the joie de vivre of the region gagged and bound in mountains of ICC-sanctioned red tape. The World Cup final, a match-up between the two best sides in the tournament, was an opportunity for last-minute redemption. Nobody, unfortunately, told the loudmouth officials who think that they (and not the players) are the star attraction, and instead the occasion became cause for further ridicule.

Ricky Ponting simply could not believe what he was hearing when umpire Aleem Dar strode up to him and his cavorting team-mates, after play had been suspended at the end of the 33rd over of Sri Lanka's run-chase, and tapped the huddle on the collective shoulder. "I thought he was having a joke to stop our celebrations," he said, having heard Dar declare - erroneously as it turned out - that the game still had three overs to go. "We stopped and looked at him and I said, 'Look mate, we've played the 20 overs, we've finished the game.'"

There once was a time when the agreement of two on-field captains would have been quite sufficient to allow common sense to prevail in a game of cricket. Mahela Jayawardene, Ponting's opposite number, also believed that the game was up but, as a gesture of goodwill, he agreed to play pat-ball with Australia's spinners in near-darkness, just so as to avoid having to return the following morning. "Before we went back out to the middle, I tried to explain to the third umpire, but he had already made his decision," said Jayawardene, accurately spelling out the provisions of the Duckworth-Lewis method, which requires the chasing team to have batted 20 overs before a result can be declared.

That third umpire, incidentally, was Rudi Koertzen, onto whom the buck was subtly but unequivocally passed by Crowe. "He's the one who has the rule-book and makes the calculations and allowances, and was talking about tomorrow. But it's not Rudi's mistake, it was a collective mistake. The fact that Rudi suggested it doesn't mean the others couldn't have overruled him."

	Sri Lanka had to contend with rain and bad light interruptions © Getty Images

How do you over-rule an over-bearing umpire, however? This is the third high-profile occasion in the last two years when the thrill of a cricketing contest has been secondary to the demands of the rule-book. The last two occasions both occurred at The Oval in London - in 2006 when Darrell Hair's ego ran amok amid the ball-tampering fiasco, and in 2005, when the greatest Ashes series in modern times ended with a similarly daft delay for bad light and, ultimately, the symbolic (but excessively showy) removal of the bails by Billy Bowden and, you guessed it, Koertzen.

"Sometimes you get a stronger voice which says 'I know the rules - this is how it works'," added Crowe, giving a candid insight into the sort of high-level squabbling that goes on behind closed doors in the umpire's room. "Then you get a bit of confusion in the group itself, and no-one wants to overrule the other. But the match referee should have known and said 'that's not right - the game should be completed now'."

But the match referee did not know, and to those who have watched them in action over the past few years will not be remotely surprised. Mike Procter was the man who singularly failed to calm the chaos during the Darrell Hair crisis last year, as the stand-off escalated to boardroom level almost before anyone had worked out what had happened. This time Crowe, despite being the manager of the loftily titled "Playing Control Team", proved himself to be equally useless. Asked if this was a resignation issue, he replied: "I'll have to ask my superiors". Does the buck ever stop anywhere in the ICC's maze of power?

The sad truth is that the increasing corporatisation of the game has robbed it of spontaneity at every level, so much so that even the game's oldest foe, the weather, is no longer capable of making an appearance without tying the administrators in knots. After a three-hour delay in the morning, the hustle to ensure that the contest was both completed in one day and was of a length that befitted such a showpiece occasion meant that too many overs were shoehorned into too short a timespan.

But the most idiotic utterance of the day came from Crowe, as he tried to explain the difference between a rain-delay and a bad-light delay. "When light is used in the calculations of a day's play, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the end of a day's play," he declared, a statement that was Canute-esque in its defiance of the laws of nature. Every cricketer on the planet, from the kids on the Mumbai maidans to the captains in the World Cup final, knows that when it is too dark to see, it is too late to hope that the moon might suddenly provide some extra wattage.

How many ICC officials does it take to change a lightbulb? Don't ask. The answer's not actually very funny.

Leading man: Ramnaresh Sarwan's first task as captain should be to pick the squad for the tour of England © Getty Images

Vaneisa Baksh

The unsurprising news that Ramnaresh Sarwan will captain West Indies and lead the team to England has come out of a West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) meeting. If all goes as the WICB stated, Sarwan's first task will be to join the selectors on Tuesday to pick the team. It may be his easiest duty as the once coveted role has become so embroiled in intrigue and muck that its holder is now seen as a suicide cricketer.

The tour to England may seem to be on tenuous grounds given the fact that contract negotiations between the WICB and the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) have again been placed in the hands of an arbitration panel, led by the chief justice of Barbados, Sir David Simmons. But for jaded onlookers, the situation is such a familiar one with such a familiar outcome that nobody seriously doubts the tour will be scrapped. Uncertainty prevails, however, about whether there will be a new coach or even a physical trainer in that time.

A major problem within the team has been its internal relations, its indiscipline and its unwillingness to train and maintain fitness programmes. Granted, it is not an easy problem to uproot, but it requires an intervention that explicitly communicates intent.

When Brian Lara announced his retirement, two names were immediately tossed out as his successor: Sarwan and Daren Ganga. Both have led their national teams with success, both are good cricketers, though one has a better record, and both have completely different approaches to the game.

Ganga's leadership has been about instilling discipline and nurturing a good work ethic. Sarwan considers himself a gambler who is willing to take risks. But Sarwan has become a senior member of this team of skylarkers, has been obviously part of the embedded culture, and despite his best intentions, cannot impose a new and unwelcome ethic. He may have the most attractive playing record at this stage, but Lara's was more impressive and that didn't do the trick.

In selecting the squad for the World Cup, the WICB omitted Ganga, despite his recent good form, and it struck me then as it does now. What a complete and utter rejection it was of all the qualities of leadership that Ganga represented. It was probably just as well that they left him out, because he might just have been seen as a party pooper.

Batsmen and rivals: Sarwan beat Daren Ganga in the race to replace Brian Lara © AFP

Ganga, at 28, brings a decidedly more mature approach than Sarwan, who will turn 27 in June. Not that age is the decider, but their temperaments and experiences have been starkly different. Ganga has been bumped in and out of the West Indies team, sometimes inexplicably, but he has been stoic and resilient and has always tried to work out his problems, though it has affected his confidence.

Sarwan has breezed through his career based on his obvious talent. When he shines, he is dazzling, but he is belligerent towards criticism and stubbornly refuses to amend flaws in his technique. He is supercharged with confidence, which can be a good thing, and he will probably be a forthright captain (though that might be a contractual no-no).

In 2002, I interviewed him and one of the elements of the conversation that has returned to me several times during the intervening years was that he repeatedly insisted that nothing had changed in him since he was 15 or 16. "I've been the same way," he said, more than once, and watching him since I could see the truth of the statement.

I also asked him what he thought were the qualities of a good captain. His response was immediate, suggesting he'd already worked it out. "One, he should know how to speak," he said. "He should be cool in situations, he should know when to make a decision, and he must be a gambler. He should be a gambler. And he must have cricket knowledge as well."

They were all qualities he felt he had then, and if now, under these oppressive and complex circumstances he thinks he is up for the challenge, one hopes that he understands it takes other things as well.