Was it the greatest one-day match?

IT was termed the 'greatest match of all', the fifth and final one-day international between South Africa and Australia, which the host country won by the thinnest of margins - one wicket with a ball to spare.

It was not so much the result that mattered because there have been several close finishes in one-day cricket history to match it, but the awesome number of runs that was made. In almost 100 overs 872 were scored for the loss of 13 wickets.

This meant that the batsmen averaged almost nine runs an over throughout the match, which would take some beating. The manner in which the match was played was too good to be true. For the average cricket fan it was a night of entertainment.

Everyone had their money's worth and they went home happily to keep recalling the events that unfolded before them on that day in the pubs, at home and at meeting places. For the atheists there remained several unanswered questions.

The ease with which both sides made runs was as if the bowlers never existed. There was also the TV commentators almost predicting what would happen as if they had some premonition of the events ahead. Somewhere in the 23rd over of the South African innings Tony Greig asked the question: "Will this be the day that one-day cricket history will be made?"

The way Ricky Ponting handled his bowlers also threw grave suspicion. Why wasn't his main fast bowler Brett Lee given his full quota of overs, but a raw and inexperienced fast bowler like John Lewis persisted with for his ten overs despite getting rough treatment from the South African batsmen. Sad to say Lewis went for a one-day record of 113 runs. When the match ended Lee still had 13 balls left to bowl.

Had this match taken place in Asia instead of Johannesburg how would the cricket pundits and critics from the white nations review it? They would have questioned the authenticity of the match and tied it with match fixing.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) should seriously review how this match was played and clarify the veracity with which it was played.

Although one-day cricket was invented for the batsmen with everything in favour of them, the way the bowlers took a pounding at Johannesburg made former cricket greats to call for some sanity to be restored in the game as it was now becoming purely one-sided.

"The skill has been taken out of cricket. As a cricket person, it is very boring because the bowlers have no chance. All the rule changes, the power plays and things, have just made things so much in favour of batsmen," said former South African Test opener Barry Richards.

"Cricket is the only game that has been made smaller in the past 100 years. It's all in the name of commercialism."

Bob Woolmer, the former England batsman and Pakistan cricket coach said: "We've got a situation where the batsman has gone too far.

When you have a match like that everyone says it is the greatest game ever. But I don't personally agree with that because it is too many runs and the bowlers are taking a huge whack. Who'd want to be a bowler in that game."?

"I think there should be a little bit more in it for the bowlers. The pitch must have a balance, the type of surfaces you play on. That's one of the areas people will have to look deeply into," said Woolmer who was one time head of the ICC's high performance program.

The Jo'burg mauler will still go down in the history books as the greatest one-day game ever. But doubts will still persist whether it really was.

Hope for Dilhara

Fast bowler Dilhara Fernando who is struggling to overcome a persistent problem of bowling no-balls should take heart from England fast bowler Simon Jones who was also affected by it some time ago.

To overcome the problem Jones sought the assistance of former British Olympic long jumper Lyn Davis. He trained with him for a few weeks and got over it. There's hope for Dilhara who lost his place in the on-going one-day international series against Pakistan.