It ended today like it had last night, with the raining coursing down and the crowd trudging home ahead of time. The rain wasn't torrential enough to get the wags started on their snorkelling jokes, but it was persistent enough to ensure that for the first time in the history of the game, two teams will share a major trophy. Sri Lanka will gaze to the heavens and thank the benevolent deities who bailed them out for a second game in succession. Once Muttiah Muralitharan had tweaked his groin racing to cut off a boundary from Virender Sehwag, there was only going to be one winner in this match, and even the hard-core home fans acknowledged as much.

The pitch may have been low and slow but Sri Lanka still made a meal of their batting effort. The early loss of Sanath Jayasuriya – those that live by the angled bat sometimes die by it – and Marvan Atapattu didn't help the run-rate and despite Aravinda de Silva meting out some harsh lessons on line and length to Ajit Agarkar, the innings never got out of Timmy the Tortoise mode.

De Silva's dismissal (this time, the crowd was too sparse for the standing ovation to truly resonate through the stands) killed the match from a neutral's point of view and while Mahela Jayawardene and Russel Arnold deserve credit for making sure Sri Lanka didn't crumble like an autumn leaf, their partnership (118 runs from 173 balls) was scarcely of the edge-of-the-seat variety. Jayawardene turned up the heat in the final phase of his innings, but Arnold dawdled along for the most part.

Once again, India's bowlers did a terrific job, albeit on a surface that was as good as it gets for slow bowlers in one-day games. Zaheer Khan was outstanding and the more you see of him, the more you're convinced he's almost up there in the world-class category. Anil Kumble was back to something like his best, removing de Silva via a miscued hoick, while Harbhajan probed away without much success. Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar never let up the pressure and apart from that one disastrous over from Agarkar, it was an almost perfectly disciplined bowling effort.

But it beggars belief why the match that was cut short yesterday wasn't continued today, as has been the case in all previous World Cups when matches were interrupted by inclement weather. Starting from scratch was a ridiculous option and the next time the ICC frame the tournament rules, they might pause to consider the local climate and weather patterns. After three weeks of cricket that went from the mundane to the occasionally brilliant, it's a pity that the curtain came down with a wet full stop. Just as well for Sri Lanka, whereas for India the wait for a major success goes on. Next stop, the World Cup in South Africa…

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India

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