Philo Wallace was in one of his nastiest moods yesterday. Right from the word 'go', the West Indies opener took the South African bowling to the sword and raced on to score his maiden hundred in one-day cricket by smashing the ball all around the corner.
He reached his hundred in his 23rd match with the help of five sixes and eleven firm hits to the rope, prompting fans in the stand to chant 'Wallace.. Wallace..'. The entertainer of the day however got himself out soon after his ton. South Africa captain Hansie Cronje could claim the prized wicket when Wally was on 103. Wallace, who was never rated as a class batsman, scored 221 runs in his three matches in the tournament at an average of 73.6. The Barbados skipper made his first fifty off 72 balls and the second fifty came from only 26. His previous best was 79 off 58 balls against Pakistan, also in the Wills fiesta here.
The other three century-makers in the tournament are Zimbabwe captain Alistair Campbell (100), Indian master batsman Sachin Tendulkar (141) and South African Jacques Kallis (113).
Free-view
There were new spectators at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday. Dozens of gulls were seen flying over the big bowl as if to have a free-view of what went on the pitch. At that time the West Indies innings was in progress and their ball-bashing opener was in full fury. The gulls however probably found it a bit too risky to hover above the stadium as the Philo 'big man' Wallace was quite frequently sending the ball everywhere. The visitors soon left the spot.
Homeward bound
The tournament is now over and it's time to go home. India and Pakistan didn't wait to see the final of the nine-day tournament. The two Asian rivals left the capital yesterday.
Wills International Cup winners South Africa and the losing finalists West Indies will stay back one more day at Dhaka. The two teams will depart tomorrow. After the semifinal loss against South Africa, World Champions Sri Lanka hurriedly left the city on Saturday. The Australians, knocked out in the quarterfinal by India, also left for Pakistan on Saturday.
Earlier on Wednesday, three teams - Zimbabwe, England and New Zealand - made their departure.
No hard feelings
Bowler Hansie Cronje shrugged in sheer disgust and then threw the ball away after Jacques Kallis mis-fielded at long-off, which allowed Philo Wallace an extra run. But Kallis proved him as the kingpin of the South African team as he once again displayed an excellent all-round performance to herald the West Indies downfall. He finished with career-best figures of 7.3-0-30-5 and then went on to score 37.
The South African captain however gave Kallis the warmest hug to acknowledge his contributions in winning the Cup. The sturdy all-rounder was quite rightly rewarded as the player-of-the-final.
Novelty indeed
The efforts of Khelar Bhuban, a local sports magazine, proved very handy for autograph hunters during the nine-day knockout tournament. The magazine house published a special issue with photographs of the cricketers of all the nine participating teams with plenty of space for the stars to sign their autographs. Apart from the spelling errors and a few wrong captions, it was an unique effort.
Worldtell photo
The WorldTel team gathered on the field between the innings to capture their visit to Dhaka in a memorable photograph. They spent about twenty minutes in front of the camera.